ER IX

_Jeanne d'Arc and the English Occupation_

"Je scay bien que les Angloys me feront mourir, croyant qu'
apres ma mort ils gagneront le royaume de France; mais quand
meme ils seraient cent mille godons de plus qu'ils ne sont
presentement, ils n'auraient pas ce royaume."

Of the many interesting processions which must have taken place in the
fifteenth century on the occasion of the great ceremony of the Fierte
St. Romain, surely few can have been more impressive than that in
which the Duke of Bedford, in his capacity as Canon of the Cathedral,
walked among the ecclesiastics towards the little chapel in the Place
de la Haute Vieille Tour where the freedom of the prisoner was
declared before the assembled people. For in him all might see the
outward and visible proof of an English occupation in its most
intimate connection with the ancient traditions begun under his
ancestors the Dukes of Normandy. But his presence is not the only sign
that can be clearly traced of the interest which the English
inevitably felt in the most extraordinary privilege of their new
possession. As usual on every occasion when a new set of officials
came in touch with this astonishing and deeply-rooted custom, their
contact is marked by fresh expressions of dissent. So, just as
Philip-Augustus had to uphold, against his own officials, the custom
which every prince before him had sanctioned, in exactly the same way
we find Henry V. affirming that the Privilege of St. Romain was of
right to be exercised by the canons of the Cathedral according to
their ancient precedents. And it is instructive that though his
verdict was first pronounced in a case by which a native prisoner
benefited, it was only in the next year, and again on some other
occasions, that an Englishman was chosen to bear the holy shrine and
win pardon for his sins. So strangely, indeed, and so strongly was the
privilege exercised during these years of foreign dominion, that I
cannot avoid the reflection--humiliating to Rouen as it is--that an
attempt at least might have been made to exercise it in the case of
the most famous prisoner ever in the donjons of the city, of the woman
who would have been most worthy of those upon the roll of mercy to
benefit by the protection of the Church. But if any attempt was made
in favour of Jeanne d'Arc, it has not been recorded, and this is one
of the strongest reasons for my regret that, full as they are, these
record