DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70300#0257
JOAN D’ARC.
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227
“ If I have always borne my own standard myself, I have
never had any other object in doing so but to avoid shedding
human blood. I have never, in fact, killed one man in
battle. If I have hung up my arms in the church of St. Denys,
it was that I might thank God for not having been killed at
the attack of the city of Paris, where I was wounded, and
without having any other motive, much less that of exposing
them for public veneration. If many persons have kissed my
hands and my rings, they have done it in spite of me. I did
all that was in my power to prevent them, and I only re-
ceived with pleasure poor persons who came to me, and
whom I consoled in the best manner that I could. As to my
rings, I never had but two, one given me by my father, and the
other by my brother, and I have never attributed any charm
or power to them.
“ If there were any who did not approach me until they had
made the sign of the cross with holy water, I have said to
them, Approach without fear, I shall not jly away. If one
Friar Richard has pressed me to adopt the revelations of a
woman whom he caused me to see, I have not believed in
them after having made the examination which I judged
necessary. If they have painted portraits of me, I have only
seen one, which represented me kneeling and presenting a
letter to the king. If they have made images or other repre-
sentations of me on paper, in lead, or any other metal; if they
have been worn suspended at the neck, if they have called me
a saint, if they have taken me for the first saint in Paradise
after the Holy Virgin, if they have taken me for an angel
rather than a woman, if they named me in church in their
prayers, or if they have raised statues to my honour, as you
pretend, I know nothing at all about it. I am even ignorant
whether those who are on the king’s side believe me sent by
God for the purpose of doing what I have ; but whether
they believe it or not, it is not the less true, since I have only
acted by virtue of the revelations which have been made to
rpe.
2 2
/
227
“ If I have always borne my own standard myself, I have
never had any other object in doing so but to avoid shedding
human blood. I have never, in fact, killed one man in
battle. If I have hung up my arms in the church of St. Denys,
it was that I might thank God for not having been killed at
the attack of the city of Paris, where I was wounded, and
without having any other motive, much less that of exposing
them for public veneration. If many persons have kissed my
hands and my rings, they have done it in spite of me. I did
all that was in my power to prevent them, and I only re-
ceived with pleasure poor persons who came to me, and
whom I consoled in the best manner that I could. As to my
rings, I never had but two, one given me by my father, and the
other by my brother, and I have never attributed any charm
or power to them.
“ If there were any who did not approach me until they had
made the sign of the cross with holy water, I have said to
them, Approach without fear, I shall not jly away. If one
Friar Richard has pressed me to adopt the revelations of a
woman whom he caused me to see, I have not believed in
them after having made the examination which I judged
necessary. If they have painted portraits of me, I have only
seen one, which represented me kneeling and presenting a
letter to the king. If they have made images or other repre-
sentations of me on paper, in lead, or any other metal; if they
have been worn suspended at the neck, if they have called me
a saint, if they have taken me for the first saint in Paradise
after the Holy Virgin, if they have taken me for an angel
rather than a woman, if they named me in church in their
prayers, or if they have raised statues to my honour, as you
pretend, I know nothing at all about it. I am even ignorant
whether those who are on the king’s side believe me sent by
God for the purpose of doing what I have ; but whether
they believe it or not, it is not the less true, since I have only
acted by virtue of the revelations which have been made to
rpe.
2 2