NICOLAS LOYSELEUE
Judge
by Marcel Schwob
Marcel Schwob / Nicolás Loyseur
Born on Ascension Day, he was dedicated to the Virgin, whose aid he invoked at all times during his life until he could not hear her name without his eyes would fill with tears. He was first schooled by a lean man in a little loft on the rue Saint-Jacques, where, after learning his psalms, donats and penitences with three other children, he laboriously acquired the logic of Okam. He soon became bachelor and master of the arts, for the venerable instructors found his gentle nature charmingly unctuous, as sweet words of adoration slipped easily from his fat lips. No sooner had he obtained his baccalaureate than the Church had its eye on him. He served first in the diocese of the Bishop of Beauvais who recognized his talent, using it to inform the English before Chartres how certain French captains were deploying. When he was about thirty-five years old they made him a canon of the Cathedral of Rouen, where he struck up a friendship with another canon and chorister, Jean Bruillot, with whom he psalmed fine litanies in honor of Mary.
Now and again he saw fit to remonstrate with Nicole Coppequesne, one of the monks of his chapel, taking that brother gently to task for his unseemly devotion to Saint Anastasia. Transported at the thought of a clever girl so beguiling a Roman magistrate, Nicole Coppequesne had a habit of carrying his ecstasies to the kitchen, flinging himself upon the pots and pans until his ardent embraces left him black in the face and smudgy as a demon. But Nicolas Loyseleur showed Nicole Coppequesne how much brighter was the power and the glory of Mary when she chose to resuscitate a drowned friar—a lewd friar surely, whose only salvation lay in his reverence to the Virgin. One night as Nicole Coppequesne left his cell bent on celebrating one of his odious kitchen orgies, his course led him past the altar of the Blessed Lady, where he paused perforce in pious genuflection. And that night his lubricity was drowned in the river. The evil spirits who threw him in did not return to rescue him, but when the monks hauled his body out of the water the following day he opened his eyes after a time, revived by the grace of Mary. “Ah, what a choice remedy is such devotion!” breathed canon Nicolas Loyseleur. “How venerable, Coppequesne, and how discreet. Surely from this day you will renounce your Anastasia!”
When the Bishop of Beauvais opened the process against Jeanne la Lorraine at Rouen the graceful persuasiveness of Nicolas Loyseleur was not forgotten. Dressed as a layman, his shaven pate covered by a hood, Nicolas entered the small circular cell under the staircase where the prisoner was confined.
“Jeannette,” he began, drawing back well into the shadows, “Sainte Katherine has sent me to you, Jeannette.”
“And you,” said Jeanne, “in God’s name who are you?”
“I am a poor cobbler from Greu,” Nicolas replied. “Alas for our unhappy country! The ‘Godons’ have taken me, too, my girl. I know you well, Jeanne. How many, many times have I seen you kneeling before the Holy Mother of God in the Church of Sainte-Marie of Bermont! I have often sat there with you while our good cure, Guil¬ laume Front, has said the mass. Do you remember Jean Moreau and Jean Barre of Neufchateau, Jeanne? They were my comades.”
Jeanne wept.
“Trust me, Jeannette,” urged Nicolas. “They made me a priest years ago. See? See my shaven head? Confess yourself to me, my child. Confess freely. Our gracious King Charles is my friend.”
“I will confess to you gladly,” said Jeanne.
A small hole had been secretly cut in the wall beforehand. Outside the cell Guillaume Manchon and Bois-Guillaume prepared to write down the confession as Nicolas Loyseleur whispered:
“Jeannette, tell me the truth. Tell me all . . . the English will not dare to harm you.”
On the following day Jeanne was taken before her judges. Hidden by a thick serge curtain Nicolas Loyseleur sat with a notary in the hollow of a casement window. The notary was there to elaborate all charges against Jeanne in the record, and to leave her answers blank. When Nicolas appeared in the open court he made a little sign to prevent her from showing her surprise. Then he assisted the severe examination.
On the ninth of May, in the main tower of the Chateau, he declared that the need for torture was urgent.
On May the twelfth all the judges assembled with the Bishop of Beauvais to decide if Jeanne should be tortured. Guillaume Erart thought it unnecessary. Enough material had been obtained without that measure, he said. In Master Nicolas Loyseleur’s opinion it would be well to torture her for the good of her soul, but his advice was not followed.
On the twenty-fourth of May they led her to the cemetery of Saint-Ouen, where they tied her to a scaffold with her feet on a pile of faggots. While Guillaume Erart prayed, Nicolas Loyseleur was close beside her, whispering in her ear. Menaced by the fire, she grew deathly white as Nicolas caught her in his arms and with a quick glance at the judges, cried out: “She will confess.” When she passed him again at the low door of the prison he kissed her fingers.
“Please God, Jeannette,” he said, “this day has been well for you. Your soul has been saved, Jeanne. Only trust me and you shall be free. Resume the modest garments of your proper sex. Do as you are told else you are still in danger. Obey me, Jeanne, and you shall be saved. You are a good girl; there is no evil in you. But you are in the power of the Church. You must remember that.”
After dinner he visited her in her new prison, an apartment in the Chateau, reached by eight stairs. Nicolas sat down on the bed to which a heavy block was fastened by an iron chain.
“My Jeannette,” he began, “God and Our Lady have been merciful to you this day, for they have shown you the grace and mercy of our Holy Mother the Church. When the judges and holy men command you must obey humbly. You must give up your old ideas or the Church will abandon you forever. See, Jeanne—here are honest garments of a modest girl. Be quick to shear those boyish locks.”
Four days later Nicolas returned while Jeanne was asleep and stole the skirt and smock he had given her. When they told him she was again in man’s clothing he exclaimed :
Alas, I fear she’s sunk too deep in evil.”
And to the Archbishop in his chapel he repeated the words of Doctor Gilles of Duremort:
“We, her judges, have but to declare Jeanne d’Arc a heretic, abandoning her to secular justice; praying they shall deal with her leniently.”
Before they led Jeanne to the stake Nicolas reached her side with Jean Toutmouille.
“Oh, Jeannette,” he pled, “hide the truth no longer for now you must think only of your soul’s salvation. Trust me, my child! Here, before all eyes, you must go down on your knees in public confession. Public, Jeanne! Humble and public . . . for the good of your soul.”
Jeanne begged his help, fearing her courage there before the mob.
He stayed to see her burn. It was then he manifested his devotion to the Virgin so visibly. When Jeanne began to scream out in the name of Mary, Nicolas wept hot tears, strongly moved as he was at the very sound of Our Lady’s name. The English soldiers thought he cried out of pity for Jeanne, so they struck him and threatened him with their swords. If the Count of Warwick had not protected him they would have cut his throat then and there. As it was he mounted one of the Count’s horses and rode away.
For many long days he wandered over the roads of France, avoiding Normandy and the king’s men. Finally he reached Bale. Standing on a wooden bridge between tall pointed houses with blue and yellow tur¬ rets, roofed with arched, striated tiles, he was suddenly dazzled 15y the glare of the Rhine. He saw himself drowning like the lewd friar, Nicole Coppequesne, in the green water whirling before his eyes, and Mary’s name choked in his throat as he died with a sob.
Imaginary Lives
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