Part 1

THE STORY OF JOAN OF ARC THE WITCH--SAINT

By M. M. Mangasarian

Lecturer Of The Independent Religious Society

From "The Rationalist," October, 1913

PAST NUMBERS OF THE RATIONALIST.

No. 1. St. Francis, the Second Christ.

No. 2. Marcus Aurelius.

No. 3. Ships that Sink in the Night; or, God and the Titanic.

No. 4. What has Christ Done for the World?

No. 5. Lyman Abbott on Immortality.

No 6. Voltaire in Hades.

No. 7. The Gospel of Sport--What Shall I Do to Be Saved? Play!

No. 8. A Poet's Philosophy of Happiness--Omar Khayyam.

No. 9. A Rationalist in Home. (A Lecture in Three Parts.) Part 1

No. 10. A Rationalist in Rome. (A Lecture in Three Parts.) Part 2

No. 11. A Rationalist in Rome. (A Lecture in Three Parts,) Part 3

No. 12. Jew and Christian According to Shakespeare.

No. 13 and 14. Christian Science and Common Sense.

No. 15. A Message From Abroad.

No. 16. The First Modern Man.

No. 17. The Monk and The Woman in The Garden of Allah.

No. 18. The High Cost of Living and the Higher Cost of Superstition

No. 19. The Debate between Three Clergymen and a Rationalist.

No. 20. Rationalism and Crime.

No. 21. Women and Crime.

No. 22. Was Jesus a Socialist?

No. 23. The Catholic Church and the Socialist Party.

No. 24. What is the Trouble with the World?

The above 24 lectures will be sent to any address upon receipt of $2

Volume 2

No. 1. Who Made the Gods?

No. 2. Marriage and Divorce, According to Rationalism.

No. 3. The American Girl.

No. 4. The Catholic Church in Politics.

No. 5. Christian and Turk.

No. 6. The Gospel According to Bernard Shaw.

No. 7 and 8. Morality Without God.

No. 9. A Letter to My Flock.

No. 10. A Missionary's Convert.

No. 11. The Ex-Priest in Paris.

The Rationalist

Is published by the Independent Religious Society semi-monthly. Each number is to consist of a lecture by M. M. Mangasarian. Price of subscription, per annum, $2.00. Orders should be sent to The Independent Religious Society, 922 Lakeside Place, Chicago

JOAN OF ARC

This lecture on Joan of Arc, delivered some time ago, provoked a great deal of criticism in Chicago. The people who protested against it and wanted to punish its author were, naturally enough, the Roman Catholics. What interests me in Joan of Arc is not the fact that the story of her martyrdom and subsequent canonization could be used as a weapon against the Church of Rome, but because the story in itself is so very compelling. It is quite true that the story also illustrates how far from infallible the Catholic Church has been in its dealings with the Maid of Orleans--first, burning her at the stake as a witch, and, five hundred years later, beatifying her as a saint. The statement in my lecture which caused the greatest displeasure was to the effect that the same church which had burnt Joan of Arc as a witch in fourteen hundred thirty-one had sainted her in nineteen hundred and nine. The Catholics deny that they were at all responsible for the terrible death of the deliverer of France. This lecture will throw some light on that question.

As related in a former lecture, it was at her shrine, in the Church of the Sacred Heart, in Paris, last summer, that I promised myself the task of presenting to the American people the truth about Joan of Arc. I shall speak very plainly in this lecture, but, I am sure, without any trace of bitterness in my heart toward anyone. I shall speak with feeling, of course, for it is impossible not to be moved to the depths by the events which brought a girl of nineteen to the stake--but my passion is free from anger or prejudice. I can weep for this young woman without gnashing my teeth on her fanatical persecutors. I am sure I can tell the truth without lying about the Catholic Church.

But I do not wish to be sentimental, either. I have not forgiven the unrepentant destroyers of the innocent. To convert a heretic into a saint by trying to prove that she was not a heretic at all is not repentance; it is sophistry. To deny that Joan suffered death at the hands of, and by the authority of, the Vicar of Christ on earth is not a sign of regret for the past, but a defiance of history. When the Catholics shall admit that, through ignorance, and urged on by circumstances they could not control, they committed the act which they have since atoned for by offering her a heavenly crown--when, I say, the Catholics shall shed over her body tears as genuine as those which black Othello shed over the woman he had smothered--then we will forgive them.

But the Catholic Church will have to choose between securing our forgiveness and retaining her infallibility. If she should repent of a single act ever committed by her officially, she would lose her claim to infallibility--for how can the infallible err? If, on the other hand, she should hold to her infallibility, how can she be sorry for anything she has ever done? If I had any influence with the Catholics I would advise them to sacrifice infallibility for the respect of humanity. It is much more divine to say, "I am sorry," than to say, "I am infallible." But the Catholic Church will not take my advice.

The shrine of Joan in the Paris church is almost as eloquent as her stake in Rouen. I have seen them both--that is to say, I have seen the spot on which she was consumed, marked by a white slab; and I have seen the marble figure of Joan, as a girl, in the attitude of prayer, now in the Church of the Sacred Heart in Paris. As I stood at her shrine in this great white church it seemed to me that, even though Joan of Arc has, at last been made a saint, there was still a prejudice against her on the part of the people, as well as of the priests. This is only an impression, and I hope I am mistaken. But let me present the evidence on which I base my misgivings: In the first place, Joan is not given the preference in the shrine set apart for her. St. Michael, whoever he might be, occupies the whole front of the altar, and only on the windows and the side walls do we find any mention of Joan and the events of her heroic career. There is also, at one end of the enclosure, as intimated before, a small marble figure of Joan on her knees. Why does St. Michael usurp the place of honor over the altar? Who is he? What has he done for France? In the second place, there was not a single lighted candle at her shrine. St. Mary's altar, a little distance off, was ablaze. St. Joseph's, too, was honored by lighted candles. But no one was on her knees and no flame twinkled before the sainted Joan of Arc. They say that it is almost impossible to outlive the charge of heresy. In former times, quite frequently, even heretics who repented of their heresies were put to death, nevertheless. To have ever been accused, even, or suspected of heresy, is an unpardonable crime. Joan was suspected, at least, of rebellion against Rome, and it seemed to me, as I reflected upon what I observed in the church, that the Catholics had canonized this village maid reluctantly, and only under pressure, and after five hundred years of dillydallying.

But before I left the Church of the Sacred Heart there was a lighted candle upon her altar. I lighted it. Approaching one of the candle tables, of which there are half a dozen in the building, I purchased a long, tapering candle, white as the lily, and I touched it with fire--I kindled it and set it in one of the sockets to burn before the kneeling Joan. I left my flaming candle in the Church of the Sacred Heart! I, a non-Catholic, offered my fire to Joan, not because she had been canonized--for I never wait for the consent or the approval of the Pope before paying homage to anybody--but because her sweet, sad story is one of the most moving of modern times, and her vindication one of the most stupendous conquests of modern thought.

The Church of the Sacred Heart is one of the most beautiful in Paris. It is built on the highest point in the city and commands a wonderful view. As I have told you before, I have two friends who dwell on this summit--really, a superb location. It is approached by a long flight of stairs, or by a cog-wheel train. Before it, and all around it, sweeps the Paris of to-day, as did the Paris of Clovis and Charlemagne, nearly fifteen hundred years ago; the Paris of Julian, Emperor of Rome, older still; the Catholic Paris, when kings and parlements bowed low to kiss the great toe of the Italian Christ, or his vicar; the Paris of the Medici--red and bloody; the Paris of the Huguenots, of Henry of Navarre, of Conde and Colligny--sad, desolate, and in the throes of a new faith; and the Paris of the philosophers, whose smile softened its barbarities, lit up its darkness, and made it a city of light--_La ville Lumiere!_ There, on that splendid elevation, live my two young friends. They are both at the age of nineteen. One of them a lad, the other a maid. The girl is housed; the boy is exposed. Joan of Arc lives in the church--the cathedral is her home. The Chevalier de La Barre stands on the edge of the hill, with sun and shower falling upon his head. The Catholic Church burnt them both at the stake--the boy and the girl; the one because he did not tip his hat to the priest at a street procession, the other because she believed in herself! But modern thought has vindicated both of these outcasts. Joan now dwells in a white church, perfumed and lighted; and the Chevalier crowns the brow of the hill with his youthful figure and appealing gesture. The chain which tied these children to the stake in a dark age has flowered! Is not that wonderful? I believe in the forces, the ideas, the movement--the thought that can cause a chain to flower!

I am not going to speak this morning of the Chevalier de La Barre, to commemorate whose memory the nationalists of France have erected this monument, close to the Church of the Sacred Heart. He will be my theme on another occasion. In this lecture I shall confine myself to the story of Joan of Arc. And a strange story it is! A young girl of seventeen marches at the head of a dilapidated and demoralized army, and leads it on to victory against the best fighters of the world, the English, who, in the fifteenth century, were trying to annex France to England; she is captured by traitors, sold to the enemy for ten thousand pounds; and then she is handed over to the church to be tried for heresy. She is tried, convicted, and sentenced to be burned alive. This sentence, the most revolting on record, is carried out in all its literalness, and in broad daylight, and under the shadow of the Christian cross, and at the very doors of a great cathedral. All this transpired in the city of Rouen, on the thirtieth day of May, fourteen hundred thirty-one.

In order that I may enter into the spirit of the thrilling events of which Rouen was the stage, I repaired to that city, and reverently visited the scenes of the trial and the martyrdom of this latest saint of the Catholic world. Words cannot convey to you the emotions which, like a storm, burst upon me suddenly as the conductor on my train called out, "Rouen!" It was then about a half hour to midnight, and, jumping into a carriage, I was quickly driven to my hotel. What thoughts, and how they crowded in upon me, as soon as I laid my head upon my pillow. My brain was too active to permit of sleep. I imagined I was living in _the year fourteen hundred thirty-one_, and that I had just reached this city on the eve of the martyrdom of Joan. "To-morrow," I whispered to myself, "Joan of Arc will be led to the stake." Again and again I repeated to my pillow this shuddering intelligence. "What," I exclaimed to myself, "a young woman who saved France by her courage is going to be committed to the flames in this very city _tomorrow!_" I could not believe it possible. I could not believe that there was folly enough, or hatred enough, or stupidity enough, in the world for so desperate a deed. But, alas, it was true. With my eyes closed, I fancied I saw the throngs marching through the streets--consisting of peasants, of merchants, of priests, of princes--to see a girl of nineteen burned in the fire, and in all that throng there was not one who had either a kind word or thought for her--her who had given them a country to live in. Abandoned, hated and spat upon, she was left to suffer the cruelest punishment that human _inhumanity_ could devise, or the most perverse imagination invent. A girl of nineteen burned alive! "Oh, God!" The words escaped my lips in spite of me. Then I turned about and called upon _Humanity_. But in the fifteenth century God and Humanity were both hard of hearing. Then I called upon _Science_ and _Reason_. But these were not yet born. "There is no help then," I whispered to myself, and my heart swelled within me with indignation, and I became desperate, realizing my helplessness.

With my head upon my pillow during that first night I spent in Rouen, I tried to penetrate into the motives for the persecution of Joan. This brave girl was feared because she was superior to her age. She provoked the jealousy of her inferiors. Her independence and originality alarmed both the Church and the State. Her ability to take the initiative, and her courage to disagree with her spiritual teachers was a menace to the authority of the priest with the keys, and the king with the sword. The English would not admit that a mere girl, a Domremy peasant, tending her father's cows, could have the genius to whip them--the most powerful warriors of Europe. The Catholic Church, on the other hand, would not forgive Joan for distinguishing herself without their help. For a woman to eclipse the Holy Church and humiliate a powerful State, was a crime punishable by death.

In less than two years' time Joan had saved France, after the prayers of the Church and the armies of the nation had failed ignominiously. In the opinion of the world of that day there was only one power, the devil's, that could outwit the Church. It was not denied that Joan had driven the victorious armies of the enemy out of France, and made a conquered people free again; but it was argued that she had achieved this triumph, not by the help of God, but by the instrumentality of the devil. In those days, anything, however praiseworthy, if accomplished without the permission and cooperation of the Church, was the work of the devil. Joan had consulted her own heart, instead of the village confessor. That was her heresy. Joan had seen visions and heard voices on her own account. That is the independence which, if encouraged, or even recognized, would overthrow the Catholic Church. No one is allowed to receive revelations at first hand. Even God is not permitted to speak except through his vicar on earth. In short, Joan was a _protestant_, inasmuch as she not only had direct relations with heaven, but she refused to allow the Church to be the judge as to whether her voices were from God or from Satan. During all the agony of her long trial, every effort was made to induce her to allow the Church to be the judge of the nature of her visions. Joan refused the test. There was no doubt about her heresy. She believed herself capable of judging. That was her unpardonable sin.

Still imagining myself in Rouen, in the year fourteen hundred thirty-one, I said to myself, "I must arise early in the morning and go to the old market place to catch a glimpse of the wonderful woman when she leaves the tower for the stake." As the picture of what I would see on the following day arose before my closed eyes, I trembled. "I will not let them burn her," I cried passionately. But, alas, what could one man do against king, pope, and the mob! And I tossed in my bed like one in a cage who is conscious of his helplessness against iron bars.

Suddenly, a thought struck me, as the lightning strikes a tree. "This is fourteen hundred thirty-one," I repeated to myself. "I must get up at once and repair to the palace of the Bishop of Beauvais, the priest who holds in the hollow of his hand the fate of the bravest maid in history. If I could only have a half hour with him," I said, "to pour into his ears my protest, my pleadings, my scorn, my prayers; or, if I could tell him of the time when Joan will have a shrine in a Catholic Church!--he might relent and hearken unto reason?" With these thoughts in my mind I jumped out of my bed, I lit the candle, I put on my clothes. Then, in haste, I walked out into the night, seeking my way in the streets of the strange city now deserted. By the help of the moon and the stars of that night in May, _fourteen hundred thirty-one_, I traced my way to the imposing Cathedral of St. Ouen, standing like a towering shadow in the cold light of the night, and close to which lived the Bishop of Beauvais.

I knocked upon the Bishop's door. "Open, open," I cried, as in the dead of night I kept pounding upon the door. "I wish to come in," I cried. "I wish to save the Church from an indelible stain, I wish to protect the honor of humanity." "Open, open," I cried, again and again, and in the stillness of the night the noise of my blows reached far and wide. Louder and louder still I cried to the Bishop to open the door. "I wish to rescue France and England from committing an act of infamy; I wish to save history from an unspeakable shame. Let me in, Bishop! I come to protect you against the execration of posterity, against eternal damnation! Open, open the door!" I shouted. I kept pounding upon the door, long and loud, on the eve of that foul day in fourteen hundred thirty-one. I grew impatient with waiting for the door to open, and my voice, which a moment before swept up and down the whole gamut of hope and despair--pleading, shouting, sobbing--now became faint and feeble.

I could not arouse the Bishop. He was fast asleep. Then I was silent myself. Suddenly I heard a far away whisper. It did not come from the Episcopal palace, nor from the Cathedral close by, yet I was sure I heard some one speaking. I listened again. I could now hear more clearly. "I am coming, I am coming," was repeated in caressing accents. "I am coming, to open the door, to awaken the Bishop, to usher in a more joyous day for humanity. I will extinguish the fires of persecution, turn executioners into teachers, disarm superstition, and make the whole world sane. In that day Joan will triumph over her foes and make their churches her mausoleum." It was the voice of Reason! But it took five hundred years for that faint whisper to swell into a mighty chorus, swinging around the globe. That prophecy has been fulfilled, the Bishop's door opened, and the Church yielded to the clamor of civilization, and changed Joan's stake into the shrine where I lit my candle in her honor, in the Church of the Sacred Heart. She is no longer a heretic, she has become a saint. Her tears have changed into pearls, her tomb into a cathedral, where she sleeps in pomp on the bosom that once stung her to death.

But I was not in Rouen in fourteen hundred thirty-one; I was there five hundred years too late. The day after I arrived in the city, I went to the market place, but, instead of a procession with candles and torches, with stakes and fagots, I found commerce, industry, labor, in full possession of the great square. Prosperous looking men and women met and greeted one another pleasantly; farmers were selling fruit and vegetables; the women, flowers. Even the priests one came across smiled as they saw the happy countenances of the people. What a change! Common sense has sweetened human nature and flooded the mind with the light that destroys superstition and makes all men brothers. The guide pointed out to me the white marble slab marking the spot on which Joan of Arc met her death. "Upon this place stood the stake of Joan of Arc. The ashes of the glorious virgin were thrown into the Seine." This is the inscription on the slab which was placed there by the municipality in eighteen hundred ninety-one.

Close to this same spot the citizens of Rouen have erected a fountain, in the form of a monument, to the same heroic maiden. I stood and watched the playful waters as they fell with a liquid plash into the marble basin below. Presently, a woman came along with her pitcher. The stake at which Joan of Arc was burned to death has become a fountain, to which the people now come to slake their thirst. Walking up to the woman, I said, "What fountain is this?"

"Ah, monsieur," she exclaimed, "behold the fountain of Joan of Arc."

"But she was a heretic," I remarked. I can never forget her smile. The sun had arisen in her eyes. "We live in the twentieth century," she replied. And, unconsciously, we both heaved a sigh of relief. I rubbed my eyes to be sure we were not living in the middle ages, when Rationalism was still a babe in swaddling clothes, and Theology was lord of all. This is the twentieth century--for we are drinking at the fountain of Joan of Arc instead of carrying fagots to her stake! One of the sunniest spots in my memory will be my meeting with this peasant woman, with her pitcher, at the fountain of Joan of Arc.

But my object in this lecture is to help clear some obscure questions in connection with the trial, martyrdom and subsequent canonization of this girl of nineteen. I wish to bring about a more intelligent appreciation of the story of a young shepherdess, beginning from the day she left her home in Domremy, to the fiery scaffold; and thence to a place among the saints in the Catholic calendar. This is the only instance in Catholic history of a person once destroyed as a heretic who has afterwards received the highest honors within the gift of the Church. In fourteen hundred thirty-one an infallible body of ecclesiastics pronounced this young woman to be "a child of perdition, a sorceress, a seducer, a harlot and a heretic." Five hundred years after, another infallible body of ecclesiastics belonging to the same church pronounced the same "harlot" and "heretic" to be "angelic" and "divine." One infallible pope allowed her to be burned in fourteen hundred thirty-one; another infallible pope denounced her murderers as detestable criminals--which shows how fallible is infallibility.