Monday, June 06, 2005
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Yes, Obi-Wan, There Still Are Books
Published: June 5, 2005 For the first few centuries after Johann Gutenberg started churning out Bibles, books had it easy. There were paintings, songs and sermons, of course, but movable type applied to paper was the cutting-edge technology for telling stories. Today, books compete with DVD's, video games, 500 channels of cable television and a nearly limitless number of pages on the Internet. The good news is that even in this high-tech age, old-fashioned books appear to be holding their own.
In the three years that ended last December, consumer spending on books rose 8 percent, to nearly $21 billion, as Edward Wyatt reported in The Times last week. Spiritual books like "The Purpose-Driven Life," which has sold more than 22 million copies since 2002, and books with religious themes, like "The Da Vinci Code," have been selling particularly briskly. Political books, both conservative and liberal, have also done well.
Remarkably, Americans still spend more on books than they do on moviegoing, recorded music, video games or DVD's. Despite all the advances in technology, books still have no equal when it comes to telling complicated, nuanced narratives.
The news on book sales is not all good. The driving force behind the increase in revenue is higher prices, not more books sold. In fact, the number of books sold has declined 3 percent in the last three years. And the National Endowment for the Arts found, in a report released last year, that literary reading had declined sharply among adults over the past two decades.
That means there is still a need for all of the well-known prescriptions: better English instruction in the schools, more literacy programs and more money for libraries. Still, in an age when air travelers can watch a Hollywood movie on their laptops, and video game players can live in a virtual city in their computers, a gratifyingly large number of Americans still want to curl up with a good book.
How Saudi Arabia can double oil production
Saudi oil production capacity could grow from its current 11 million b/d to over 23 million b/d to meet world demand according to Saudi Aramco's President and Chief Executive Officer Abdallah S. Jumah, confounding sceptics who believe that the Kingdom may be approaching, or even past, peak production.
Saudi Arabia: Saturday, June 04 - 2005 at 13:00
In a speech delivered at Rice University in Houston Mr Jumah said that the Kingdom is uniquely positioned to step up and deliver, because of its reserves and resources, to consider raising its production by such a margin.
The company is currently expanding its production, processing and transport infrastructure to allow for a 12 million b/d capacity which includes a commitment to maintain 1.5 million to 2 million b/d of spare production capacity.
At the end of 2004, Crown Prince Abdullah inaugurated Saudi Aramco's Qatif project, north of Dhahran. This has increased production capacity by 800,000 b/d. Some 500,000 barrels derives from onshore extraction and 300,000 barrels from the offshore Abu Safah field which is part of the Qatif production project.
Increased production capacity has been helped by completion of other recent projects in the South Riyadh oilfield, Shaybah, as well as Qatif. A project in the Haradh field to produce another 300,000 b/d will be completed in 2006 while 500,000 b/d is expected to come on stream from field developments at Abu Hadriya, Fadhili and Khursaniyah in 2007. New production at the Khurais field north of Saudi Aramco's principal Ghawar field will increase output there to 1.9 million b/d by 2009.
200 billion barrels more
According to Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi: 'There are great opportunities to increase the Kingdom's producible oil reserve by about 200 billion barrels either through new discoveries or increasing the percentage of extractable oil from known reserves.'
Saudi Aramco says it has a conservative approach to reservoir estimates and depletes its reverses at a far slower rate than major oil companies a policy which is designed to provide a healthy cushion between its production and its maximum sustainable capacity.
Dr. Nansen Saleri, Saudi Aramco's oil reservoir manager has said that Saudi Aramco's production capacity can easily be increased to sustainable rates of 12 million to 15 million barrels-a-day if global markets demand the extra crude.
With 27.62% of the world's proven oil reserves, Saudi Arabia possesses the lion's share of all the oil producing countries crude according to BP's latest annual statistical survey.
About 130 billion barrels of this is developed and mostly in production. Saudi Aramco's plans call for the replacement of 15 billion barrels of reserves from 2005 to 2009 at a rate of about 3 billion barrels a year.
'We believe very confidently that we are looking very conservatively upwards of 150 billion barrels over and above the 260 billion barrels that we carry as proven reserves right now. That is 60% more and that's the underlying message we want to convey,' Dr Saleri told the Centre for Strategic and International Studies last year.
Saudi Aramco considers that the huge acreage in Saudi Arabia's Rub al-Khali Empty Quarter desert region in the south-east offers big potential for new oil finds as well as the northern basin towards the northern border as well as the offshore Red Sea basin.
Saudi Arabia: Saturday, June 04 - 2005 at 13:00
In a speech delivered at Rice University in Houston Mr Jumah said that the Kingdom is uniquely positioned to step up and deliver, because of its reserves and resources, to consider raising its production by such a margin.
The company is currently expanding its production, processing and transport infrastructure to allow for a 12 million b/d capacity which includes a commitment to maintain 1.5 million to 2 million b/d of spare production capacity.
At the end of 2004, Crown Prince Abdullah inaugurated Saudi Aramco's Qatif project, north of Dhahran. This has increased production capacity by 800,000 b/d. Some 500,000 barrels derives from onshore extraction and 300,000 barrels from the offshore Abu Safah field which is part of the Qatif production project.
Increased production capacity has been helped by completion of other recent projects in the South Riyadh oilfield, Shaybah, as well as Qatif. A project in the Haradh field to produce another 300,000 b/d will be completed in 2006 while 500,000 b/d is expected to come on stream from field developments at Abu Hadriya, Fadhili and Khursaniyah in 2007. New production at the Khurais field north of Saudi Aramco's principal Ghawar field will increase output there to 1.9 million b/d by 2009.
200 billion barrels more
According to Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Ali Al-Naimi: 'There are great opportunities to increase the Kingdom's producible oil reserve by about 200 billion barrels either through new discoveries or increasing the percentage of extractable oil from known reserves.'
Saudi Aramco says it has a conservative approach to reservoir estimates and depletes its reverses at a far slower rate than major oil companies a policy which is designed to provide a healthy cushion between its production and its maximum sustainable capacity.
Dr. Nansen Saleri, Saudi Aramco's oil reservoir manager has said that Saudi Aramco's production capacity can easily be increased to sustainable rates of 12 million to 15 million barrels-a-day if global markets demand the extra crude.
With 27.62% of the world's proven oil reserves, Saudi Arabia possesses the lion's share of all the oil producing countries crude according to BP's latest annual statistical survey.
About 130 billion barrels of this is developed and mostly in production. Saudi Aramco's plans call for the replacement of 15 billion barrels of reserves from 2005 to 2009 at a rate of about 3 billion barrels a year.
'We believe very confidently that we are looking very conservatively upwards of 150 billion barrels over and above the 260 billion barrels that we carry as proven reserves right now. That is 60% more and that's the underlying message we want to convey,' Dr Saleri told the Centre for Strategic and International Studies last year.
Saudi Aramco considers that the huge acreage in Saudi Arabia's Rub al-Khali Empty Quarter desert region in the south-east offers big potential for new oil finds as well as the northern basin towards the northern border as well as the offshore Red Sea basin.
16 tornadoes hit central United States
Saturday, June 4, 2005 Posted: 8:07 PM EDT (0007 GMT)
(CNN) -- Storms drenched parts of the nation's midsection Saturday, and twisters were reported in several states in the first major outbreak of tornadoes this year.
At least 16 tornadoes that brought rain, flooding and some hail, touched down in parts of Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, Missouri and Oklahoma.
A tornado was reported in central Wisconsin, the National Weather Service said, and Ashland and Taylor counties in the north-central section of the state reported heavy storms with damaging winds.
Winds faster than 50 mph hit Chicago, and at least 19,000 residents were without power in the afternoon.
At least two tornadoes were reported straddling Missouri and Kansas near Interstate 29 about 5 p.m. They were reported in the vicinity of Holt County in northwest Missouri and Doniphan County in northeast Kansas. A tornado later was spotted to the west, in Brown County, Kansas.
Storms also moved across Oklahoma City, and at least one tornado was sighted in southern Oklahoma, in the vicinity of Stephens and Comanche counties.
Conditions were expected to worsen as the night wears on.
The National Weather Service warned that conditions in other areas also were right for strong twisters, large hail, damaging winds and flash flooding.
It's known by the man in charge as "the outhouse", yet it is Australia's front line of defence against a killer flu pandemic.
On the eve of the unveiling of the latest anti-pandemic strategy, Australia's flu fighters are still based in hopelessly outmoded headquarters. Signs warn of ants in the kitchen, tape holds the air-conditioning flues together, and the biosecurity measures are inadequate. The Australian World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza is a series of ageing red-brick buildings on the site of CSL's big vaccine-making plant in Parkville, opposite the Commonwealth Games village.
Compared with its three partners in Atlanta, Tokyo and London, it is a relic. The centre's deputy director, Alan Hampson, began his career here in 1958 - and he is on the verge of retirement.
Now that Asian bird flu is threatening to become a pandemic, the work identifying the virus' characteristics has to be done elsewhere in Victoria - such as in the highly secure animal biosecurity laboratory in Geelong. "We can't handle the live virus here in our lab," Mr Hampson says. "We have to rely on other laboratories to help us."
Despite such drawbacks, the country has managed to become what Australia's Chief Medical Officer, John Horvath, believes is one of the best-prepared nations for a flu pandemic. The Federal Government put aside $114 million in last year's budget to build a stockpile of anti-viral drugs, 50 million syringes, 40 million surgical masks and extra hospital equipment. This followed an estimate that a major flu pandemic could lead 2.6 million Australians to seek medical attention, put 58,000 people in hospital, and kill 13,000.
For its preparedness, Australia can probably thank Mr Hampson, who initiated pandemic planning in the mid-1990s. He became concerned about a flu pandemic, and began knocking on the doors of health officials - without much success.
"When the chicken flu thing broke out in 1997, people started to listen," he said.
In the latest federal budget, $23 million was allocated to rebuild the WHO centre. Although he will not reap the benefit, Mr Hampson is pleased there will be a new laboratory - expected to be finished within 18 months, somewhere yet to be announced. He has also contributed to the most up-to-date strategy for coping with a killer flu pandemic. This is expected to be launched tomorrow by federal Health Minister Tony Abbott, who has described the pandemic as potentially "a worldwide biological version of the Indian Ocean tsunami".
The strategy, supported by all states and territories, is an attempt to prepare for the consequences if Asia's avian flu strain, now caught only from birds, mutates to enable human-to-human transmission in a severe form.
Australia's plan is expected to settle the contentious issues of border control, quarantine and who gets access to anti-viral drugs. Drawn up by the National Influenza Pandemic Advisory Committee, it will set out what will be done to slow the spread of a pandemic and establish how essential services will be maintained while vaccines are developed to protect the whole population.
Health authorities have warned of a possible re-run of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919, which killed an estimated 40 million people worldwide, including 12,000 in Australia.
To date, fewer than 100 people have died as a result of the flu in Asia, where it has been devastating bird life. But the virus' behaviour led WHO to warn earlier this year that the world was "now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic". Health authorities are taking the threat seriously.
On the eve of the unveiling of the latest anti-pandemic strategy, Australia's flu fighters are still based in hopelessly outmoded headquarters. Signs warn of ants in the kitchen, tape holds the air-conditioning flues together, and the biosecurity measures are inadequate. The Australian World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza is a series of ageing red-brick buildings on the site of CSL's big vaccine-making plant in Parkville, opposite the Commonwealth Games village.
Compared with its three partners in Atlanta, Tokyo and London, it is a relic. The centre's deputy director, Alan Hampson, began his career here in 1958 - and he is on the verge of retirement.
Now that Asian bird flu is threatening to become a pandemic, the work identifying the virus' characteristics has to be done elsewhere in Victoria - such as in the highly secure animal biosecurity laboratory in Geelong. "We can't handle the live virus here in our lab," Mr Hampson says. "We have to rely on other laboratories to help us."
Despite such drawbacks, the country has managed to become what Australia's Chief Medical Officer, John Horvath, believes is one of the best-prepared nations for a flu pandemic. The Federal Government put aside $114 million in last year's budget to build a stockpile of anti-viral drugs, 50 million syringes, 40 million surgical masks and extra hospital equipment. This followed an estimate that a major flu pandemic could lead 2.6 million Australians to seek medical attention, put 58,000 people in hospital, and kill 13,000.
For its preparedness, Australia can probably thank Mr Hampson, who initiated pandemic planning in the mid-1990s. He became concerned about a flu pandemic, and began knocking on the doors of health officials - without much success.
"When the chicken flu thing broke out in 1997, people started to listen," he said.
In the latest federal budget, $23 million was allocated to rebuild the WHO centre. Although he will not reap the benefit, Mr Hampson is pleased there will be a new laboratory - expected to be finished within 18 months, somewhere yet to be announced. He has also contributed to the most up-to-date strategy for coping with a killer flu pandemic. This is expected to be launched tomorrow by federal Health Minister Tony Abbott, who has described the pandemic as potentially "a worldwide biological version of the Indian Ocean tsunami".
The strategy, supported by all states and territories, is an attempt to prepare for the consequences if Asia's avian flu strain, now caught only from birds, mutates to enable human-to-human transmission in a severe form.
Australia's plan is expected to settle the contentious issues of border control, quarantine and who gets access to anti-viral drugs. Drawn up by the National Influenza Pandemic Advisory Committee, it will set out what will be done to slow the spread of a pandemic and establish how essential services will be maintained while vaccines are developed to protect the whole population.
Health authorities have warned of a possible re-run of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1919, which killed an estimated 40 million people worldwide, including 12,000 in Australia.
To date, fewer than 100 people have died as a result of the flu in Asia, where it has been devastating bird life. But the virus' behaviour led WHO to warn earlier this year that the world was "now in the gravest possible danger of a pandemic". Health authorities are taking the threat seriously.
At the end of the marathon. As early as January I was unable to run without pain in my right ankle. I went to a phsiotherapist and did some pilates and core strengthening, and on Race Day had absolutely no pain in my right ankle. Instead, my left ankle hurt, probably from hours (over 5 hours) being exposed to a slightly curving road surface. I was surprised once I'd finished that my toes were completely numb, and my left ankle hurt so much I couldn't walk without limping slowly. Going down steps was a nightmare. Ironman is about this one thing: "Anything Is Possible".
I quite enjoyed this race, had a few short conversations with others guys, especially on the bike, but even so, 6 hours is a helluva long time, most of it you're on your own. When I got into the transition tent a girl helped me get my shoes on (it gets difficult when yours muscles are trying to cramp), and she said something to me, and I said, "You're the first person I've spoken to in hours. It's so nice to speak to someone again."
The cycle took me 6 hours exactly, including a quick refueling satop at 120km. At this point on the cycle (called Schoenmakerskop Road - Shoemakershead Road) the wind was behind us and it was undulating but basically flat. Here's where I built up my average speed and my ZIPPS (aero wheels) kicked butt.
These are very low quality pictures off an Austrian website www.live-sportphotos.com. This is number 328. I'm quite impressed that they have managed to make the photos good enough to see, bad bad enough so you don't really want to reproduce them. They don't accept American Express, and their website is in Austrian. I can understand about 10% of what's written. I got as far as ordering the prints, but don't know how to do offline ordering because I don't understand what they're saying! Must find their email address and ask them if they accept AMEX.
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Oil prices rally on future supply concerns
LONDON, JUN 3 (AFP)
World oil prices today rebounded on disruption to exports leaving Iraq and concern about possible heating fuel shortages during the northern hemisphere winter, traders said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in July, gained 77 cents to 54.40 dollars per barrel in early deals.
The contract had slid 97 cents to close at 53.63 dollars per barrel yesterday after official data showed a jump in US crude stockpiles that eased gasoline, or petrol, supply worries.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in July jumped 1.23 dollars to 53.63 dollars per barrel after losing 87 cents yesterday.
"It seems to be the continuation of a very erratic market," Bache Financial trader Tony Machacek said.
"The only vaguely bullish development is that the northern Iraqi exports, which only just restarted yesterday (Thursday after months of inactivity), have been closed again this morning." Iraqi oil exports to Turkey's Mediterranean port of Ceyhan were interrupted today as the result of an established shipping schedule and not because of sabotage, an official at the Northern Oil Company said later.
"Oil shipments which began Thursday were interrupted Friday according to an export schedule adopted by the NOC which consists of pumping crude oil on an intermittent basis," the official told AFP from the oil hub of Kirkuk.
Machacek noted also that concerns about distillate inventories, which include heating fuel and diesel, were providing support to prices.
By Jeremy Lovell Fri Jun 3, 8:07 PM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - The devastating impact of mankind on the planet is dramatically illustrated in pictures published on Saturday showing explosive urban sprawl, major deforestation and the sucking dry of inland seas over less than three decades.
Mexico City mushrooms from a modest urban center in 1973 to a massive blot on the landscape in 2000, while Beijing shows a similar surge between 1978 and 2000 in satellite pictures published by the
United Nations in a new environmental atlas.
Delhi sprawls explosively between 1977 and 1999, while from 1973 to 2000 the tiny desert town of Las Vegas turns into a monster conurbation of one million people -- placing massive strain on scarce water supplies.
"If there is one message from this atlas it is that we are all part of this. We can all make a difference," U.N. expert Kaveh Zahedi told reporters at the launch of the "One Planet Many People" atlas on the eve of World Environment Day.
Page after page of the 300-page book illustrate in before-and-after pictures from space the disfigurement of the face of the planet wrought by human activities.
U.N. Environment Program chief Klaus Toepfer has chosen efforts to make cities greener as this year's theme for World Environment Day on Sunday on the basis that the world is becoming increasingly urbanized.
"Cities pull in huge amounts of resources including water, food, timber, metals and people. They export large amounts of wastes including household and industrial wastes, wastewater and the gases linked with global warming," he said in a statement.
"Thus their impacts stretch beyond their physical borders affecting countries, regions and the planet as a whole.
"So the battle for sustainable development, for delivering a more environmentally stable, just and healthier world, is going to be largely won and lost in our cities," Toepfer added.
The destruction of swathes of mangroves in the Gulf of Fonseca off Honduras to make way for extensive shrimp farms shows up clearly in the pictures.
The atlas makes the point that not only has it left the estuary bereft of the natural coastal defense provided by the mangroves, but the shrimp themselves have been linked to pollution and widespread damage to the area's ecosystem.
And images of the wholesale destruction of vital rainforest around Iguazu Falls -- one of South America's most spectacular waterfalls -- on the borders between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay evoke comparisons with a bulldozer on a rampage.
"These illustrate some of the changes we have made to our environment," Zahedi said. "This is a visual tool to capture people's imaginations showing what is really happening."
"It serves as an early warning," he added.
Friday, June 03, 2005
49 Done, Cry Wolf
Don't have much time to write anything now. Today whizzed by. Quite interesting, it really flowed as I've managed to get a constant degree of discipline going. My friend in the 7pm class tried some tricks that backfired. More on that later.
Will post pictures of tonight once I have some time to spare again.
Will post pictures of tonight once I have some time to spare again.
Bird flu: we're all going to die
Or else governments will impose a police state that will make all the ID cards and airport checks look like a tea party. You'd not be allowed to move anywhere without showing off a vaccination certificate. (Sure, you'd get those on the black market, and they'd cost more than £300, but would you really want them? If you're not vaccinated would you really want to travel among people who might be carriers?) Or it might be both at once.
One more thing. You might well be one of those millions who die in such a pandemic. If you travel to work on public transport; if colleagues in your company travel by air to Asia; if you're travelling abroad through a busy airport. You'll probably touch someone or share air with someone who's infected. The premise of Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys will become reality.
You may think this is overblown. But discussion of the possibility of a flu pandemic has fallen out of the news. And as the security consultant Bruce Schneier says: "One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. By definition, 'news' means that it hardly ever happens. If a risk is in the news, then it's probably not worth worrying about. When something is no longer reported - automobile deaths, domestic violence - when it's so common that it's not news, then you should start worrying."
The risks posed by an outbreak of flu passed from chickens in the Far East, in coutries such as Vietnam and Thailand, burst into the news in February. But now they've passed out of the news. Since then we've had more important things, like the Crazy Frog ringtone, to concern us.
Time to worry. And the scientists are. In fact, they're edgier than I've seen them since the BSE outbreak was in its earliest days and people were wondering if it might pass to humans. Quite a few scientists stopped eating beef at that point. Oh, you didn't know?
Now, their reaction is to write papers and watch what's happening, very closely. If you read the scientific journals (we do, so you don't have to) the articles are piling up. Last week the journal Nature pulled together an entire online resource on the threat of avian flu.
That's the trouble with scientists. They get an idea into their heads - CFCs and ozone, carbon dioxide emissions and the greenhouse effect, the transmission of BSE to other species such as humans - and they worry away at it until they determine what the answer and the mechanism is.
Here's what's they're worrying about now. The First World War killed seven million people. But the strain of flu that followed it - incubated, experts reckon, in pigs that were kept near the front lines to help feed the troops - killed up to 100 million, helped by the movement of troops returning home from the war.
Pandemics come around, on average, about every 70 years or so. There were small ones in 1957 and 1968/9, when "Hong Kong flu" - strain H1N1 - spread around the world, and one million died. That was tiny by pandemic standards. The scientists reckon we're overdue for an infectious, fatal strain of flu, one which can pass from human to human by the usual methods - sneezing or contact.
There's already a deadly strain of flu around - "chicken flu", better known to the scientists by the strain of flu virus that causes it: H5N1. But it only passes from chickens to humans, not from from person to person. If it could do that, it would have the potential to turn pandemic.
But maybe it already can. There have already been a couple of cases of deaths from H5N1 where the only logical pathway is human-to-human. The UK government announced in February that it will buy in thousands of doses of Tamiflu as part of the UK Influenza Pandemic Contingency Plan (PDF, 160kB).
Too bad - the latest results (reported by New Scientist; limited-time free access) suggest that Tamiflu isn't effective against H5N1. And anyway, New Scientist reports, the UK's order for 14.6 million five-day courses of Tamiflu treatment will take its patent owners Roche two years to fulfil. The company is still trying to develop ways to synthesise it from scratch.
The consequences of a really big, fatal flu epidemic on modern society are hard to imagine, partly because they're so enormous. Air passengers would be the first vector of infection, followed by the people who travelled with them in the train or Underground train or coach from the airport, followed by the family and friends of those people. Give it a few days and people would be falling ill, then over the next weeks dying.
If the strain is new and unexpected, there wouldn't be time to produce enough vaccine to treat it. According to a New England Journal of Medicine article by Dr Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis - who is also director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy - titled "Preparing for the Next Pandemic", the 1950s-era methods of producing vaccines means we would need (ironically enough) one chicken egg per person to produce the vaccine, plus six months to culture it.
"The global economy would come to a halt, and since we could not expect appropriate vaccines to be available for many months and we have very limited stockpiles of antiviral drugs, we would be facing a 1918-like scenario," notes Dr Osterholm, who calculates that given current technology, we could vaccinate about 500 million people, tops - about 14 per cent of the world population.
Of course, most of those will be in the developed world. But are you sure you'd be one? Are you in the Armed Forces? Do you or your business count as an essential service? If you're not involved with the electricity, water, fuel distribution, phone or gas industries, then probably not. "And owing to our global 'just-in-time delivery' economy, we would have no surge capacity for health care, food supplies, and many other products and services," Dr Osterholm adds.
Let's have some more numbers from Dr Osterholm, just to encourage you. He writes: "It is sobering to realize that in 1968, when the most recent influenza pandemic occurred, the virus emerged in a China that had a human population of 790 million, a pig population of 5.2 million, and a poultry population of 12.3 million; today, these populations number 1.3 billion, 508 million, and 13 billion, respectively. Similar changes have occurred in the human and animal populations of other Asian countries, creating an incredible mixing vessel for viruses. Given this reality, as well as the exponential growth in foreign travel during the past 50 years, we must accept that a pandemic is coming - although whether it will be caused by H5N1 or by another novel strain remains to be seen."
By Charles Arthur
Published Thursday 2nd June 2005 11:25 GMT
The theme of the person awaking from a deep sleep or coma to find a world utterly changed is a popular one in science fiction. From John Wyndham's book The Day of The Triffids through The Omega Man to the recent film 28 Days Later, the trope of the man arising from his hospital bed to find that nothing is as it was has become well-worn.
That's fine - as long as it remains just a story. But if - when - a flu pandemic comes, and millions of people die around the world over a period of months, the reality will be one of two alternatives. It's either going to be like those films, with videoconferencing suddenly all the rage, local farm produce making a big profit, empty supermarket shelves (you have to ship the oil, and distribute the fuel, but can the Armed Forces really do all that?), tumbleweed blowing in the streets, a medieval attitude to anyone not from "around here".
All this has been noted by virologists and disease experts around the world. But what can we do? For one thing, listen to what they're saying, and put some pressure on the politicians who are ignoring this threat, in the hope it will go away. Climate change may be a greater threat than terrorism, but a flu pandemic is a more immediate threat than either.
Or, as Canada's deputy chief public health officer, Dr Paul Gully, put it to the Toronto Star: "Frankly the crisis could for all we know have started last night in some village in Southeast Asia. We don't have any time to waste and even if we did have some time, the kinds of things we need to do will take years. Right now, the best we can do is try to survive it. We need a Manhattan Project yesterday."
Let's hope they got started. Now, where's the number of that forger for my vaccination certificate? ®
One more thing. You might well be one of those millions who die in such a pandemic. If you travel to work on public transport; if colleagues in your company travel by air to Asia; if you're travelling abroad through a busy airport. You'll probably touch someone or share air with someone who's infected. The premise of Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys will become reality.
You may think this is overblown. But discussion of the possibility of a flu pandemic has fallen out of the news. And as the security consultant Bruce Schneier says: "One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. By definition, 'news' means that it hardly ever happens. If a risk is in the news, then it's probably not worth worrying about. When something is no longer reported - automobile deaths, domestic violence - when it's so common that it's not news, then you should start worrying."
The risks posed by an outbreak of flu passed from chickens in the Far East, in coutries such as Vietnam and Thailand, burst into the news in February. But now they've passed out of the news. Since then we've had more important things, like the Crazy Frog ringtone, to concern us.
Time to worry. And the scientists are. In fact, they're edgier than I've seen them since the BSE outbreak was in its earliest days and people were wondering if it might pass to humans. Quite a few scientists stopped eating beef at that point. Oh, you didn't know?
Now, their reaction is to write papers and watch what's happening, very closely. If you read the scientific journals (we do, so you don't have to) the articles are piling up. Last week the journal Nature pulled together an entire online resource on the threat of avian flu.
That's the trouble with scientists. They get an idea into their heads - CFCs and ozone, carbon dioxide emissions and the greenhouse effect, the transmission of BSE to other species such as humans - and they worry away at it until they determine what the answer and the mechanism is.
Here's what's they're worrying about now. The First World War killed seven million people. But the strain of flu that followed it - incubated, experts reckon, in pigs that were kept near the front lines to help feed the troops - killed up to 100 million, helped by the movement of troops returning home from the war.
Pandemics come around, on average, about every 70 years or so. There were small ones in 1957 and 1968/9, when "Hong Kong flu" - strain H1N1 - spread around the world, and one million died. That was tiny by pandemic standards. The scientists reckon we're overdue for an infectious, fatal strain of flu, one which can pass from human to human by the usual methods - sneezing or contact.
There's already a deadly strain of flu around - "chicken flu", better known to the scientists by the strain of flu virus that causes it: H5N1. But it only passes from chickens to humans, not from from person to person. If it could do that, it would have the potential to turn pandemic.
But maybe it already can. There have already been a couple of cases of deaths from H5N1 where the only logical pathway is human-to-human. The UK government announced in February that it will buy in thousands of doses of Tamiflu as part of the UK Influenza Pandemic Contingency Plan (PDF, 160kB).
Too bad - the latest results (reported by New Scientist; limited-time free access) suggest that Tamiflu isn't effective against H5N1. And anyway, New Scientist reports, the UK's order for 14.6 million five-day courses of Tamiflu treatment will take its patent owners Roche two years to fulfil. The company is still trying to develop ways to synthesise it from scratch.
The consequences of a really big, fatal flu epidemic on modern society are hard to imagine, partly because they're so enormous. Air passengers would be the first vector of infection, followed by the people who travelled with them in the train or Underground train or coach from the airport, followed by the family and friends of those people. Give it a few days and people would be falling ill, then over the next weeks dying.
If the strain is new and unexpected, there wouldn't be time to produce enough vaccine to treat it. According to a New England Journal of Medicine article by Dr Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis - who is also director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy - titled "Preparing for the Next Pandemic", the 1950s-era methods of producing vaccines means we would need (ironically enough) one chicken egg per person to produce the vaccine, plus six months to culture it.
"The global economy would come to a halt, and since we could not expect appropriate vaccines to be available for many months and we have very limited stockpiles of antiviral drugs, we would be facing a 1918-like scenario," notes Dr Osterholm, who calculates that given current technology, we could vaccinate about 500 million people, tops - about 14 per cent of the world population.
Of course, most of those will be in the developed world. But are you sure you'd be one? Are you in the Armed Forces? Do you or your business count as an essential service? If you're not involved with the electricity, water, fuel distribution, phone or gas industries, then probably not. "And owing to our global 'just-in-time delivery' economy, we would have no surge capacity for health care, food supplies, and many other products and services," Dr Osterholm adds.
Let's have some more numbers from Dr Osterholm, just to encourage you. He writes: "It is sobering to realize that in 1968, when the most recent influenza pandemic occurred, the virus emerged in a China that had a human population of 790 million, a pig population of 5.2 million, and a poultry population of 12.3 million; today, these populations number 1.3 billion, 508 million, and 13 billion, respectively. Similar changes have occurred in the human and animal populations of other Asian countries, creating an incredible mixing vessel for viruses. Given this reality, as well as the exponential growth in foreign travel during the past 50 years, we must accept that a pandemic is coming - although whether it will be caused by H5N1 or by another novel strain remains to be seen."
By Charles Arthur
Published Thursday 2nd June 2005 11:25 GMT
The theme of the person awaking from a deep sleep or coma to find a world utterly changed is a popular one in science fiction. From John Wyndham's book The Day of The Triffids through The Omega Man to the recent film 28 Days Later, the trope of the man arising from his hospital bed to find that nothing is as it was has become well-worn.
That's fine - as long as it remains just a story. But if - when - a flu pandemic comes, and millions of people die around the world over a period of months, the reality will be one of two alternatives. It's either going to be like those films, with videoconferencing suddenly all the rage, local farm produce making a big profit, empty supermarket shelves (you have to ship the oil, and distribute the fuel, but can the Armed Forces really do all that?), tumbleweed blowing in the streets, a medieval attitude to anyone not from "around here".
All this has been noted by virologists and disease experts around the world. But what can we do? For one thing, listen to what they're saying, and put some pressure on the politicians who are ignoring this threat, in the hope it will go away. Climate change may be a greater threat than terrorism, but a flu pandemic is a more immediate threat than either.
Or, as Canada's deputy chief public health officer, Dr Paul Gully, put it to the Toronto Star: "Frankly the crisis could for all we know have started last night in some village in Southeast Asia. We don't have any time to waste and even if we did have some time, the kinds of things we need to do will take years. Right now, the best we can do is try to survive it. We need a Manhattan Project yesterday."
Let's hope they got started. Now, where's the number of that forger for my vaccination certificate? ®
Kunstler on 'confusion and dilemma'
"I sometimes get a sinking feeling when I am on an especially up-to-date commercial highway, or visiting a Sunbelt city (as I will be next week in California) and I just think to myself ". . . this place will be hopelessly fucked up in a matter of a few years. . . what will these people do. . . ?"
But when I'm home in small town America I am not dogged by anxiety moment-by-moment.
I do believe that America will be "feeling the pain" within 36 months, and perhaps even sooner if a crisis occurs (say, King Fahd of SA dies and there is a power struggle, or there is an incident in the Persian Gulf, or North Korea fires a missle over Japan, or the housing bubble starts imploding etc)
I think confusion & dilemma is a reasonable state-of-mind these days.
I think Friedman really misses something in "The Earth is Flat" -- namely that global economic relations are not a permanent condition."
- quoted from a recent email
But when I'm home in small town America I am not dogged by anxiety moment-by-moment.
I do believe that America will be "feeling the pain" within 36 months, and perhaps even sooner if a crisis occurs (say, King Fahd of SA dies and there is a power struggle, or there is an incident in the Persian Gulf, or North Korea fires a missle over Japan, or the housing bubble starts imploding etc)
I think confusion & dilemma is a reasonable state-of-mind these days.
I think Friedman really misses something in "The Earth is Flat" -- namely that global economic relations are not a permanent condition."
- quoted from a recent email
Calling Mr Kunstler
Am I starting to feel comfortable? My abode is furnished, I settle down to TV and cooked dinners, and indulge in Pringles and soda from the downstairs cafe. My Cannondale hovers above my bed, and I float from my chair by the computer, to the refrigerator and back. What am I doing?
When I catch the bus I have about 10-15 minutes each day to ponder. Like everyone else, I don't know what's going to happen next month, let alone next year.
Increasingly though, I have a strengthening sense of confusion, and dilemma. I think we are, as a society, supremely addicted to oil (and that's not just a catchphrase), and as a result, our lifestyles are abnormal.
My food in the refrigerator comes from a huge warehouse like building called Carrefour (a French supermarket company in South Korea, Britain's Tesco's is also here as is America's Wal-Mart) a few blocks away. I have olives from Spain, oranges from California, fruit juice from South Africa. It's all so comfortable I don't really think about it. To get to work I walk to a designated area, wait for a number on a moving orange or blue rectangle, get on, put in some coins and fifteen minutes later I'm where I need to be.
All the children I teach, well, a lot of them, catch buses to school too. The television I watch, the computer that serves me information, the lights shining overhead, all these are AFFORDABLE courtesy of oil. Oil is cheap today, and that represents an easy, laid back approach to squandering massive amounts of energy (personal energy, the energy of this planet (in foods) and the stored reserves on setting up supermarkets and cities where they should not be) that other generations labored and sweated blood to achieve.
I'm reading a book called The World is Flat, which basically gloats on how wonderful globalism is. That India is now handling lots of America's outsourcing. It's a book about how clever we all are. It's usually when we are in the middle of the party, when it's all flowing oh so swell, that the cops come, or the wine runs out, or someone falls and breaks a leg. Globalisation is a party like that. Just now France and the Netherlands have kind've shaken themselves and their immediate neighbours out of the we're all moving together trance, by saying, "Hang on, this isn't so good for us."
Now the Euro is starting to slide, and destabilise. An isolated event? I don't know. I just know it's happeninng. I know we need a stable system now for things to be 'good', and I see some serious cracks sprouting here, there, everywhere.
Globalisation is like the internet. The internet was initially invented with the idea of sharing scientific information. The WWW is Wonderful. Useful. Ubiquitous. But potentially quite terrible too. This same system feeds us virusses and ensalves us or subjects us to many useless communications. Spending time emailing is better at dumbing down a population than taking marijuana. Have you ever sat in front of your computer waiting for stuff to download. Have you noticed how much time you wasted doing that?
We have lots of connectivity but it's pretty meaningless. We have the capacity to send pictures, movies and jokes to each other, and we do so because we can, not because we should.
We're globalising for the same reason, and I don't believe we should. A very bad virus that gets into your computer will erase/corrupt a few files, make your computer run slow or at worst, you'll have to throw it away. A virus that infects globalisation will erase files too. It will spread very effectively, along the very pathways of efficiency we've put there...the carriers, the jets, trains, planes, automobiles. Those files are us, by the way. The virus may be a failing currency, or a terror network, or an actual sickness, or just plain high prices of a particular commodity. Now one places problem becomes everyones problem. Your problems become mine. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I want your problems, and do you want mine?
What the hell is normal, or should be normal in this Windows Operated World? Is this stuff as WOW as we think it is?
I'm feeling a bit lost myself. It's one thing to glimpse the end of suburbia. It's another to know how to disinvest out of it.
Kunstler predicts that the next phase in the world will produce a vast majority of Losers. That is, financial losers, basically a middle class unable to function.
All this speculation depends on the rate at which economic and other calamities meet us. This year, the experts tell us, is THE year.
I have lived, it seems to me, in the Age Of Doomsdaysayers. The years running up to the millenium were supposed to be IT.
I'm not really arguing the case for or or against Doomsday, whatever that may be.
I am just wondering, on my lonely pedestal, what the hell is normal anymore.
I am beginning to think it is stuff like eating an apple, drinking from a mountain stream, walking on a path between trees and over rocks, holding the hand of someone close to us or someone we love.
I feel something like Neo felt confronted by the red and the blue pill. I am one of those who feels, having ingested the red pill, I have been some of the way down the rabbit hole, and the little light at the top is a bare pinprick now. It's frightening to have a world that is so caught up with itself and bent on its own distruction/consumption.
I'm 33 and the next 20 years are likely to be a huge downshift. I wonder how I will explain to my teenage son how the world functioned before he was born, and what I was doing in it. I wonder if he will believe me if I say, "You know, I really wasn't sure exactly what to do."
He would respond by saying, I suppose: "You could have done something, you know."
What?
I have more questions for Mr Kunstler.
When I catch the bus I have about 10-15 minutes each day to ponder. Like everyone else, I don't know what's going to happen next month, let alone next year.
Increasingly though, I have a strengthening sense of confusion, and dilemma. I think we are, as a society, supremely addicted to oil (and that's not just a catchphrase), and as a result, our lifestyles are abnormal.
My food in the refrigerator comes from a huge warehouse like building called Carrefour (a French supermarket company in South Korea, Britain's Tesco's is also here as is America's Wal-Mart) a few blocks away. I have olives from Spain, oranges from California, fruit juice from South Africa. It's all so comfortable I don't really think about it. To get to work I walk to a designated area, wait for a number on a moving orange or blue rectangle, get on, put in some coins and fifteen minutes later I'm where I need to be.
All the children I teach, well, a lot of them, catch buses to school too. The television I watch, the computer that serves me information, the lights shining overhead, all these are AFFORDABLE courtesy of oil. Oil is cheap today, and that represents an easy, laid back approach to squandering massive amounts of energy (personal energy, the energy of this planet (in foods) and the stored reserves on setting up supermarkets and cities where they should not be) that other generations labored and sweated blood to achieve.
I'm reading a book called The World is Flat, which basically gloats on how wonderful globalism is. That India is now handling lots of America's outsourcing. It's a book about how clever we all are. It's usually when we are in the middle of the party, when it's all flowing oh so swell, that the cops come, or the wine runs out, or someone falls and breaks a leg. Globalisation is a party like that. Just now France and the Netherlands have kind've shaken themselves and their immediate neighbours out of the we're all moving together trance, by saying, "Hang on, this isn't so good for us."
Now the Euro is starting to slide, and destabilise. An isolated event? I don't know. I just know it's happeninng. I know we need a stable system now for things to be 'good', and I see some serious cracks sprouting here, there, everywhere.
Globalisation is like the internet. The internet was initially invented with the idea of sharing scientific information. The WWW is Wonderful. Useful. Ubiquitous. But potentially quite terrible too. This same system feeds us virusses and ensalves us or subjects us to many useless communications. Spending time emailing is better at dumbing down a population than taking marijuana. Have you ever sat in front of your computer waiting for stuff to download. Have you noticed how much time you wasted doing that?
We have lots of connectivity but it's pretty meaningless. We have the capacity to send pictures, movies and jokes to each other, and we do so because we can, not because we should.
We're globalising for the same reason, and I don't believe we should. A very bad virus that gets into your computer will erase/corrupt a few files, make your computer run slow or at worst, you'll have to throw it away. A virus that infects globalisation will erase files too. It will spread very effectively, along the very pathways of efficiency we've put there...the carriers, the jets, trains, planes, automobiles. Those files are us, by the way. The virus may be a failing currency, or a terror network, or an actual sickness, or just plain high prices of a particular commodity. Now one places problem becomes everyones problem. Your problems become mine. I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I want your problems, and do you want mine?
What the hell is normal, or should be normal in this Windows Operated World? Is this stuff as WOW as we think it is?
I'm feeling a bit lost myself. It's one thing to glimpse the end of suburbia. It's another to know how to disinvest out of it.
Kunstler predicts that the next phase in the world will produce a vast majority of Losers. That is, financial losers, basically a middle class unable to function.
All this speculation depends on the rate at which economic and other calamities meet us. This year, the experts tell us, is THE year.
I have lived, it seems to me, in the Age Of Doomsdaysayers. The years running up to the millenium were supposed to be IT.
I'm not really arguing the case for or or against Doomsday, whatever that may be.
I am just wondering, on my lonely pedestal, what the hell is normal anymore.
I am beginning to think it is stuff like eating an apple, drinking from a mountain stream, walking on a path between trees and over rocks, holding the hand of someone close to us or someone we love.
I feel something like Neo felt confronted by the red and the blue pill. I am one of those who feels, having ingested the red pill, I have been some of the way down the rabbit hole, and the little light at the top is a bare pinprick now. It's frightening to have a world that is so caught up with itself and bent on its own distruction/consumption.
I'm 33 and the next 20 years are likely to be a huge downshift. I wonder how I will explain to my teenage son how the world functioned before he was born, and what I was doing in it. I wonder if he will believe me if I say, "You know, I really wasn't sure exactly what to do."
He would respond by saying, I suppose: "You could have done something, you know."
What?
I have more questions for Mr Kunstler.
EIGHTH and NINTH PRIVATE EXAMINATION
(In the text footnotes are in bold)
The following Saturday, March 17th Present: Jean Delafontaine, Commissary, assisted by Nicolas Midi, and Gerard Feuillet, in the presence of Ysambard de la Pierre and of Jean Massieu.
The said Jeanne was required to take the oath already made by her. Afterwards, she was again interrogated:
"In what form, kind, size, and dress did Saint Michael come to you?"
"In the form of a true honest man ['prud homme' ]; of his dress and the rest I will say nothing more. As to the Angels, I saw them with my eyes; you will hear naught else about it. I believe the deeds and words of Saint Michael, who appeared to me, as firmly as I believe that Our Savior Jesus Christ suffered Death and Passion for us. And that which makes me believe it, is the good counsel, comfort, and good doctrine which he has given me."
"Will you, in respect of all your words and deeds, whether good or bad, submit yourself to the decision of our Holy Mother the Church?"
"The Church! I love it, and would wish to maintain it with all my power, for our Christian Faith; it is not I who should be prevented from going to Church and hearing Mass! As to the good deeds I have done and my coming to the King, I must wait on the King of Heaven, who sent me to Charles, King of France, son of Charles, who was King of France. You will see that the French will soon gain a great victory, that God will send such great doings that nearly all the Kingdom of France will be shaken by them. I say it, so that, when it shall come to pass, it may be remembered that I said it."
"When will this happen?"
"I wait on Our Lord."
"Will you refer yourself to the decision of the Church?"
"I refer myself to God Who sent me, to Our Lady, and to all the Saints in Paradise. And in my opinion it is all one, God and the Church; and one should make no difficulty about it. Why do you make a difficulty?"
"There is a Church Triumphant in which are God and the Saints, the Angels, and the Souls of the Saved. There is another Church, the Church Militant, in which are the Pope, the Vicar of God on earth, the Cardinals, Prelates of the Church, the Clergy and all good Christians and Catholics: this Church, regularly assembled, cannot err, being ruled by the Holy Spirit. Will you refer yourself to this Church which we have thus just defined to you?"
"I came to the King of France from God, from the Blessed Virgin Mary, from all the Saints of Paradise, and the Church Victorious above, and by their command. To this Church I submit all my good deeds, all that I have done or will do. As to saying whether I will submit myself to the Church Militant, I will now answer no more."
"What do you say on the subject of the female attire which is offered to you that you may go to Mass?"
"I will not take it yet, until it shall please Our Lord. And if it should happen that I should be brought to judgment, [and that I have to divest myself in Court.](1)....(In the Minute.) I beseech the lords of the Church to do me the grace to allow me a woman's smock and a hood for my head; I would rather die than revoke what God has made me do; and I believe firmly that God will not allow it to come to pass that I should be brought so low that I may not soon have succor from Him, and by miracle."
"As you say that you bear a man's dress by the command of God, why do you ask for a woman's smock at the point of death?"
"It will be enough for me if it be long."
"Did your Godmother who saw the fairies pass as a wise woman?"
"She was held and considered a good and honest woman, neither divineress nor sorceress."
"You said you would take a woman's dress, so that you might be free: would this please God?"
"If I had leave to go in woman's dress, I should soon put myself back in man's dress and do what God has commanded me: I have already told you so. For nothing in the world will I swear not to arm myself and put on a man's dress; I must obey the orders of Our Lord."
"What age and what dress had Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret?"
"You have had such answers as you will have from me, and none others shall you have: I have told you what I know of it for certain."
"Before today, did you believe fairies were evil spirits?"
"I know nothing about it."
"Do you know if Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret hate the English?"
"They love what God loves: they hate what God hates."
"Does God hate the English?"
"Of the love or hate God may have for the English, or of what He will do for their souls, I know nothing; but I know quite well that they will be put out of France, except those who shall die there, and that God will send victory to the French against the English."
"Was God for the English when they were prospering in France?"
"I do not know if God hated the French; but I believe that He wished them to be defeated for their sins, if they were in sin."
"What warrant and what help do you expect to have from Our Lord for wearing this man's dress?"
"For this dress and for other things that I have done, I wish no other recompense than the salvation of my soul."
"What arms did you offer at Saint Denis?"
"My whole suit of white armor ['album harnesium suum;' Gallice, 'un blanc harnoys,'] as becomes a soldier, with a sword I had won before Paris."
"Why did you make this offering?"
"In devotion, and as is the custom of soldiers when they have been wounded. Having been wounded before Paris, I offered them at Saint Denis, because that is the war-cry of France."
"Did you do it that these arms might be worshipped?"
"No."
"What was the purpose of these five crosses which were on the sword that you found at Saint Catherine of Fierbois ?"
"I know nothing about it."
"Who prompted you to have painted on your standard Angels with arms, feet, legs, and clothing?"
"I have already answered you."
"Did you have them painted as they came to see you?"
"No, I had them painted in the way they are painted in the Churches."
"Did you ever see them in the manner they are painted?"
" I will tell you nothing more."
"Why did you not have painted the brightness that comes to you with the Angels and the Voices?"
"It was not commanded me."
NINTH PRIVATE EXAMINATION
The same day, March 17th, afternoon. Present: The Bishop and the Deputy Inquisitor, assisted by Jean Beaup�re, Jacques de Touraine, Nicolas Midi, Pierre Maurice, Gerard Feuillet, Thomas de Courcelles, Jean Delafontaine; in presence of Brother Ysambard de la Pierre and John Grey.
We interrogated the said Jeanne, as follows:
"Did the two Angels painted on your standard represent Saint Michael and Saint Gabriel?"
"They were there only for the honor of Our Lord, Who was painted on the standard. I only had these two Angels represented to honor Our Lord, Who was there represented holding the world."
"Were the two Angels represented on your standard those who guard the world? Why were there not more of them, seeing that you had been commanded by God to take this standard?"
"The standard was commanded by Our Lord, by the Voices of Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, which said to me : 'Take the standard in the name of the King of Heaven'; and because they had said to me 'Take the standard in the name of the King of Heaven,' I had this figure of God and of two Angels done; I did all by their command."
"Did you ask them if, by virtue of this standard, you would gain battles wherever you might find yourself, and be always victorious ?"
"They told me to take it boldly, and that God would help me."
"Which gave most help, you to your standard, or your standard to you ?"
"The victory either to my standard or myself, it was all from Our Lord."
"The hope of being victorious, was it founded on your standard or on yourself?"
"It was founded on Our Lord and nowhere else."
"If any one but you had borne this standard, would he have been as fortunate as you in bearing it?"
"I know nothing about it: I wait on Our Lord."
"If one of the people of your party had sent you his standard to carry, would you have had as much confidence in it as in that which had been sent to you by God? Even the standard of your King, if it had been sent to you, would you have had as much confidence in it as in your own?"
"I bore most willingly that which had been ordained for me by Our Lord; and, meanwhile, in all I waited upon Our Lord."
"For what purpose was the sign you put on your letters and these words: 'Jhesus Maria'?"
"The clerks who wrote my letters put it; some told me that it was suitable for me to put these two words: 'Jhesus Maria'."
"Was it never revealed to you that if you lost your virginity, you would lose your happiness, and that your Voices would come to you no more?"
"That has never been revealed to me." (1)....(In the Minute: "et toute voyes de lout; je m'en attendaye a Notre Seigneur.")
"If you were married, do you think your Voices would come?"
"I do not know; I wait on Our Lord."
"Do you think, and do you firmly believe, that your King did right in killing, or causing to be killed, my Lord the Duke of Burgundy?"
"It was a great injury to the Kingdom of France; and, whatever there may have been between them, God sent me to the help of the King of France."
"As you have declared to my lord of Beauvais that you will reply to him and his Commissioners as you would before our most holy Lord the Pope, and as there are many questions which you will not answer, would you reply before the Pope more fully than before us?"
"I have answered you all the truth that I know; and if I know anything which comes to my memory that I have left unsaid, I will tell it willingly."
"Does it not seem to you that you are bound to reply more fully to our Lord the Pope, the Vicar of God, on all that might be asked you touching the Faith and the matter of your conscience, than you should to us?"
"Very well; let me be taken before him, and I will answer before him all I ought to answer."
"Of what material was one of your rings, on which was written 'Jhesus Maria'?"
"I do not exactly know; if it were of gold, it was not fine gold; I do not know if it were of gold or of brass; there were three crosses on it, and no other mark that I know of, except 'Jhesus Maria.' "
"Why was it that you generally looked at this ring when you were going into battle?"
"For pleasure, and in honor of my father and mother; I had that ring in my hand and on my finger, when I touched Saint Catherine as she appeared to me."
"What part of Saint Catherine ?"
"You will have no more about it."
"Did you ever kiss or embrace Saint Catherine or Saint Margaret?"
"I have embraced them both."
"Did they smell good?"
"It is well to know, they smelled good."
"In embracing them, did you feel any heat or any thing else?"
""I could not have embraced them without feeling and touching them."
"What part did you kiss - face or feet?"
"It is more proper and respectful to kiss their feet."
"Did you not give them crowns?"
"In their honor, I often put crowns on their images in the Churches. As to those who appeared to me, I never gave any to them that I can remember."
"When you placed crowns of flowers on the tree of which you spoke before, did you put them in honor of those who appeared to you?"
"No."
"When these Saints came to you, did you do them no reverence? did you bend the knee before them? did you bow?"
"Yes: and, so far as I could do them reverence, I did; I know it is they who are in the Kingdom of Paradise."
"Do you know nothing of those who came in the air with the fairies?"
"I have never done or known anything about them; but I have heard of them, and that they came on Thursdays; but I do not believe it; I think it is sorcery."
"Did not they wave your standard round the head of your King when he was consecrated at Reims?"
"No, not that I know of."
"Why was it taken to the Church of Reims for the consecration more than those of other captains?"
"It had shared in the pain, it was only right it should share in the honor."
Thursday, June 02, 2005
49, Day 4 (The Day of the Black Mamba)
It's been raining a bit, but today is just cloudy. Tomorrow we're supposed to have thundershowers. I love the rain, because I know all the dirt is being washed out of the air, even for just an afternoon or a day. It's not good if clouds hangs around, and just trap all the stuff and make it even murkier than usual. This morning though, felt fresh.
I'm not allowed to use the aircon in class, which means it's going to be an ultrastinky summer. I will wear shorts though (including trousers). It has to be an either or. Frankly I'd rather wear shorts than use the aircon.
Still coughing and sniffing and sneezing a lot. I wonder if the chalk coming off the boards is behind it in part.
I am using a black stick to dispense with BE VER RI KWAAI YIT punishments. This harks back to my days at school. I remember exasperated teachers punishing the entire class when some of us got rowdy. The sight of Black Mamba seems to have done the trick, today anyway.
I'm not allowed to use the aircon in class, which means it's going to be an ultrastinky summer. I will wear shorts though (including trousers). It has to be an either or. Frankly I'd rather wear shorts than use the aircon.
Still coughing and sniffing and sneezing a lot. I wonder if the chalk coming off the boards is behind it in part.
I am using a black stick to dispense with BE VER RI KWAAI YIT punishments. This harks back to my days at school. I remember exasperated teachers punishing the entire class when some of us got rowdy. The sight of Black Mamba seems to have done the trick, today anyway.
Jeanne - a great treasure
FIFTH PRIVATE EXAMINATION
(In the text footnotes are in bold)
Wednesday, March 14th. - Jean Delafontaine, assisted by Nicolas Midi and Gerard Feuillet. Witnesses: Nicolas de Houbent and Ysambard de la Pierre.
Jeanne was interrogated as follows:
"Why did you throw yourself from the top of the Tower at Beaurevoir?"
"I had heard that the people of Compiegne, all, to the age of seven years, were to be put to fire and sword; and I would rather have died than live after such a destruction of good people. That was one of the reasons. The other was that I knew I was sold to the English ; and I had rather die than be in the hands of my enemies, the English."
"Did your Saints counsel you about it?"
"Saint Catherine told me almost every day not to leap, that God would help me, and also those at Compiegne. I said to Saint Catherine: 'Since God will help those at Compiegne, I wish to be there.' Saint Catherine said to me, 'Be resigned, and do not falter: you will not be delivered before seeing the King of England.' I answered her: 'Truly I do not wish to see him; I would rather die than fall into the hands of the English.'"
"Is it true that you said to Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret: 'Will God leave these good people of Compiegne to die so horribly'?"
"I did not say 'so horribly,' but, 'How can God leave these good people of Compiegne, who have been, and are, so loyal to their lord, to die ?' After having fallen, I was two or three days without eating. By the leap I was so injured that I could neither eat nor drink; and all the time I was consoled by Saint Catherine, who told me to confess, and to beg pardon of God; and, without fail, those at Compiegne would have help before Martin's Day in the winter. Then I began to recover and to eat, and was soon cured." (1)....(Jeanne says that her leap from the tower was "towards the end," and as the town of Compiegne was in great straits in October, she probably made her attempt at escape towards the end of that month. The army of relief under the Count de Vendome started on October 25th, and the siege was raised early in November.)
"When you made this leap, did you think you would kill yourself?"
"No; but, in leaping, I commended myself to God. I hoped by means of this leap to escape, and to avoid being delivered up to the English."
"When speech returned to you, did you not blaspheme and curse God and His Saints? This is proved by allegation."
"I have no memory of having ever blasphemed and cursed God and His Saints, in that place or elsewhere."
"Will you refer this to the inquire made or to be made?"
"I refer me to God and not to any other, and to a good confession."
"Do your Voices ask delay to answer you?"
"Sometimes Saint Catherine answers me, but I fail to understand because of the great disturbance in the prison and the noise made by my guards. When I make a request to Saint Catherine, both my Saints make request to Our Lord; then, by order of Our Lord, they give answer to me."
"When your Saints come to you, have they a light with them? Did you not see the light on a certain occasion when you heard the Voices in the Castle, without knowing if the Voice were in your room?"
"There is never a day that my Saints do not come to the Castle; and they never come without light. And as to this Voice of which you speak, I do not remember if on that occasion I saw the light or even Saint Catherine. I asked three things of my Voices - My deliverance; That God would come to the help of the French, and protect the towns under their control; The salvation of my soul."
[Addressing herself to the Judges :] If it should be that I am taken to Paris, grant, I pray you, that I may have a copy of my questions and answers, so that I may lend them to those at Paris, and that I may be able to say to them: 'Thus was I questioned at Rouen; and here are my answers : in this way, I shall not have to trouble again over so many questions."
"You said that my Lord of Beauvais puts himself in great danger by bringing you to trial; of what danger were you speaking? In what peril or danger do we place ourselves, your Judges and the others?"
"I said to my Lord of Beauvais, 'You say that you are my Judge; I do not know if you are, but take heed not to judge wrongly, because you would put yourself in great danger; and I warn you of it, so that, if Our Lord should punish you for it, I shall have done my duty in telling you."
"But what is this peril or danger?"
"Saint Catherine has told me that I shall have help; I do not know if this will be to be delivered from prison, or if, whilst I am being tried, some disturbance may happen, by which I shall be delivered. The help will come to me, I think, in one way or the other. Besides this, my Voices have told me that I shall be delivered by a great victory; and they add: 'Be resigned ; have no care for thy martyrdom; you will come in the end to the Kingdom of Paradise.' They have told me this simply, absolutely, and without fail. What is meant by my martyrdom is the pain and adversity that I suffer in prison; I do not know if I shall have still greater suffering to bear; for that I refer me to God."
"Since your Voices told you that you would come in the end to the Kingdom of Paradise, have you felt assured of being saved and of not being damned in Hell?"
"I believe firmly what my Voices have told me, that I shall be saved; I believe it as firmly as if I were already there."
"After this revelation, do you believe that you cannot commit mortal sin ?" (2)....(The Minute inverts the order of this and the following question and answer.)
"I do not know, and in all things I wait on Our Lord."
"That is an answer of great weight!"
"Yes, and one which I hold for a great treasure."
SIXTH PRIVATE EXAMINATION
The same day, Wednesday, March 14th, in the afternoon. Present : Jean Delafontaine, Commissary, assisted by Nicolas Midi and Gerard Feuillet. Witnesses: Brother Ysambard de la Pierre and Jean Manchon.
And in the first place, Jeanne expressed herself thus:
"On the subject of the answer that I made to you this morning on the certainty of my salvation, I mean the answer thus: provided that I keep the promise made to Our Lord, to keep safe the virginity of my body and soul."
"Have you any need to confess, as you believe by the revelations of your Voices that you will be saved?"
"I do not know of having committed mortal sin; but, if I were in mortal sin, I think that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret would abandon me at once. I do not think one can cleanse one's conscience too much."
"Since you have been in the prison, have you never blasphemed or cursed God?"
"No; sometimes I said: 'bon gre Dieu,' or 'Saint Jean,' or 'Notre Dame' : those who have reported otherwise may have misunderstood."
"To take a man at ransom, and to put him to death, while a prisoner, is not that mortal sin?"
"I never did it."
"What did you do to Franquet d'Arras, who was put to death, at Lagny?"
"I consented that he should die if he had merited it, because he had confessed to being a murderer, thief, and traitor; his trial lasted fifteen days; he had for Judge the Bailly of Senlis and the people of the Court at Lagny. I had given orders to exchange this Franquet against a man of Paris, landlord of the Hotel de l'Ours. When I learnt the death of the latter, and the Bailly told me that I should do great wrong to justice by giving up Franquet, I said to the Bailly, 'As my man is dead, do with the other what you should do, for justice.'
"Did you give, or cause to be given, money to him who took Franquet?"
"I am not Master of the Mint or Treasurer of France to pay out money so."
"We recall to you: That you attacked Paris on a Feast Day; That you had the horse of my Lord the Bishop of Senlis; That you threw yourself down from the Tower of Beaurevoir; That you wear a man's dress; That you consented to the death of Franquet d'Arras: do you not think you have committed mortal sin in these?"
"For what concerns the attack on Paris, I do not think myself to be in mortal sin; if I have so done, it is for God to know it, and the Priest in confession. As to the horse of my Lord the Bishop of Senlis, I firmly believe I have not sinned against Our Lord: the horse was valued at 200 gold crowns, of which he received assignment; nevertheless, this horse was sent back to the Sire de la Tremouille, to restore it to my Lord of Senlis; it was not fit for me to ride; besides, it was not I who took it; and, moreover, I did not wish to keep it, having heard that the Bishop was displeased that it had been taken from him, and, beyond all this, the horse was of no use for warfare. I do not know if the Bishop was paid, nor if his horse was restored to him; I think not. As to my fall from the Tower at Beaurevoir, I did not do it in despair, but thinking to save myself and to go to the help of all those brave folk who were in danger. After my fall, I confessed myself and asked pardon. God has forgiven me, not for any good in me: I did wrong, but I know by revelation from Saint Catherine that, after the confession I made, I was forgiven. It was by the counsel of Saint Catherine that I confessed myself."
"Did you do penance for it?"
"Yes, and my penance came to me in great part from the harm I did myself in falling. You ask me if I believe this wrong which I did in leaping to be mortal sin? I know nothing about it, but refer me to God. As to my dress, since I bear it by command of God and for His service, I do not think I have done wrong at all; so soon as it shall please God to prescribe it, I will take it off.
(In the text footnotes are in bold)
Wednesday, March 14th. - Jean Delafontaine, assisted by Nicolas Midi and Gerard Feuillet. Witnesses: Nicolas de Houbent and Ysambard de la Pierre.
Jeanne was interrogated as follows:
"Why did you throw yourself from the top of the Tower at Beaurevoir?"
"I had heard that the people of Compiegne, all, to the age of seven years, were to be put to fire and sword; and I would rather have died than live after such a destruction of good people. That was one of the reasons. The other was that I knew I was sold to the English ; and I had rather die than be in the hands of my enemies, the English."
"Did your Saints counsel you about it?"
"Saint Catherine told me almost every day not to leap, that God would help me, and also those at Compiegne. I said to Saint Catherine: 'Since God will help those at Compiegne, I wish to be there.' Saint Catherine said to me, 'Be resigned, and do not falter: you will not be delivered before seeing the King of England.' I answered her: 'Truly I do not wish to see him; I would rather die than fall into the hands of the English.'"
"Is it true that you said to Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret: 'Will God leave these good people of Compiegne to die so horribly'?"
"I did not say 'so horribly,' but, 'How can God leave these good people of Compiegne, who have been, and are, so loyal to their lord, to die ?' After having fallen, I was two or three days without eating. By the leap I was so injured that I could neither eat nor drink; and all the time I was consoled by Saint Catherine, who told me to confess, and to beg pardon of God; and, without fail, those at Compiegne would have help before Martin's Day in the winter. Then I began to recover and to eat, and was soon cured." (1)....(Jeanne says that her leap from the tower was "towards the end," and as the town of Compiegne was in great straits in October, she probably made her attempt at escape towards the end of that month. The army of relief under the Count de Vendome started on October 25th, and the siege was raised early in November.)
"When you made this leap, did you think you would kill yourself?"
"No; but, in leaping, I commended myself to God. I hoped by means of this leap to escape, and to avoid being delivered up to the English."
"When speech returned to you, did you not blaspheme and curse God and His Saints? This is proved by allegation."
"I have no memory of having ever blasphemed and cursed God and His Saints, in that place or elsewhere."
"Will you refer this to the inquire made or to be made?"
"I refer me to God and not to any other, and to a good confession."
"Do your Voices ask delay to answer you?"
"Sometimes Saint Catherine answers me, but I fail to understand because of the great disturbance in the prison and the noise made by my guards. When I make a request to Saint Catherine, both my Saints make request to Our Lord; then, by order of Our Lord, they give answer to me."
"When your Saints come to you, have they a light with them? Did you not see the light on a certain occasion when you heard the Voices in the Castle, without knowing if the Voice were in your room?"
"There is never a day that my Saints do not come to the Castle; and they never come without light. And as to this Voice of which you speak, I do not remember if on that occasion I saw the light or even Saint Catherine. I asked three things of my Voices - My deliverance; That God would come to the help of the French, and protect the towns under their control; The salvation of my soul."
[Addressing herself to the Judges :] If it should be that I am taken to Paris, grant, I pray you, that I may have a copy of my questions and answers, so that I may lend them to those at Paris, and that I may be able to say to them: 'Thus was I questioned at Rouen; and here are my answers : in this way, I shall not have to trouble again over so many questions."
"You said that my Lord of Beauvais puts himself in great danger by bringing you to trial; of what danger were you speaking? In what peril or danger do we place ourselves, your Judges and the others?"
"I said to my Lord of Beauvais, 'You say that you are my Judge; I do not know if you are, but take heed not to judge wrongly, because you would put yourself in great danger; and I warn you of it, so that, if Our Lord should punish you for it, I shall have done my duty in telling you."
"But what is this peril or danger?"
"Saint Catherine has told me that I shall have help; I do not know if this will be to be delivered from prison, or if, whilst I am being tried, some disturbance may happen, by which I shall be delivered. The help will come to me, I think, in one way or the other. Besides this, my Voices have told me that I shall be delivered by a great victory; and they add: 'Be resigned ; have no care for thy martyrdom; you will come in the end to the Kingdom of Paradise.' They have told me this simply, absolutely, and without fail. What is meant by my martyrdom is the pain and adversity that I suffer in prison; I do not know if I shall have still greater suffering to bear; for that I refer me to God."
"Since your Voices told you that you would come in the end to the Kingdom of Paradise, have you felt assured of being saved and of not being damned in Hell?"
"I believe firmly what my Voices have told me, that I shall be saved; I believe it as firmly as if I were already there."
"After this revelation, do you believe that you cannot commit mortal sin ?" (2)....(The Minute inverts the order of this and the following question and answer.)
"I do not know, and in all things I wait on Our Lord."
"That is an answer of great weight!"
"Yes, and one which I hold for a great treasure."
SIXTH PRIVATE EXAMINATION
The same day, Wednesday, March 14th, in the afternoon. Present : Jean Delafontaine, Commissary, assisted by Nicolas Midi and Gerard Feuillet. Witnesses: Brother Ysambard de la Pierre and Jean Manchon.
And in the first place, Jeanne expressed herself thus:
"On the subject of the answer that I made to you this morning on the certainty of my salvation, I mean the answer thus: provided that I keep the promise made to Our Lord, to keep safe the virginity of my body and soul."
"Have you any need to confess, as you believe by the revelations of your Voices that you will be saved?"
"I do not know of having committed mortal sin; but, if I were in mortal sin, I think that Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret would abandon me at once. I do not think one can cleanse one's conscience too much."
"Since you have been in the prison, have you never blasphemed or cursed God?"
"No; sometimes I said: 'bon gre Dieu,' or 'Saint Jean,' or 'Notre Dame' : those who have reported otherwise may have misunderstood."
"To take a man at ransom, and to put him to death, while a prisoner, is not that mortal sin?"
"I never did it."
"What did you do to Franquet d'Arras, who was put to death, at Lagny?"
"I consented that he should die if he had merited it, because he had confessed to being a murderer, thief, and traitor; his trial lasted fifteen days; he had for Judge the Bailly of Senlis and the people of the Court at Lagny. I had given orders to exchange this Franquet against a man of Paris, landlord of the Hotel de l'Ours. When I learnt the death of the latter, and the Bailly told me that I should do great wrong to justice by giving up Franquet, I said to the Bailly, 'As my man is dead, do with the other what you should do, for justice.'
"Did you give, or cause to be given, money to him who took Franquet?"
"I am not Master of the Mint or Treasurer of France to pay out money so."
"We recall to you: That you attacked Paris on a Feast Day; That you had the horse of my Lord the Bishop of Senlis; That you threw yourself down from the Tower of Beaurevoir; That you wear a man's dress; That you consented to the death of Franquet d'Arras: do you not think you have committed mortal sin in these?"
"For what concerns the attack on Paris, I do not think myself to be in mortal sin; if I have so done, it is for God to know it, and the Priest in confession. As to the horse of my Lord the Bishop of Senlis, I firmly believe I have not sinned against Our Lord: the horse was valued at 200 gold crowns, of which he received assignment; nevertheless, this horse was sent back to the Sire de la Tremouille, to restore it to my Lord of Senlis; it was not fit for me to ride; besides, it was not I who took it; and, moreover, I did not wish to keep it, having heard that the Bishop was displeased that it had been taken from him, and, beyond all this, the horse was of no use for warfare. I do not know if the Bishop was paid, nor if his horse was restored to him; I think not. As to my fall from the Tower at Beaurevoir, I did not do it in despair, but thinking to save myself and to go to the help of all those brave folk who were in danger. After my fall, I confessed myself and asked pardon. God has forgiven me, not for any good in me: I did wrong, but I know by revelation from Saint Catherine that, after the confession I made, I was forgiven. It was by the counsel of Saint Catherine that I confessed myself."
"Did you do penance for it?"
"Yes, and my penance came to me in great part from the harm I did myself in falling. You ask me if I believe this wrong which I did in leaping to be mortal sin? I know nothing about it, but refer me to God. As to my dress, since I bear it by command of God and for His service, I do not think I have done wrong at all; so soon as it shall please God to prescribe it, I will take it off.
SEVENTH PRIVATE EXAMINATION
The following Thursday, March 15th, in the morning. Present: Jean Delafontaine, Commissary, assisted by Nicolas Midi and Gerard Feuillet. Witnesses: Nicolas de Houbent and Brother Ysambard de la Pierre.
First of all, Jeanne was charitably exhorted, warned, and required, if she had done anything which might be against our Faith, that she should refer it to the decision of Holy Mother Church.
"Let my answers," she said, "be seen and examined by the Clergy: then let them tell me if there be anything against the Christian Faith. I shall know surely by my counsel what it is, and will say afterwards what shall be judged and decided. And, moreover, if there be anything wrong against the Christian Faith which Our Lord commanded, I should not wish to maintain it, and should be very sorry to be in opposition."
Then we explained to her about the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant, and the difference between them. [She was] required to submit to the decision of the Church Militant whatever she had said or done, whether of good or ill.
"I will answer you nothing more about it now," she said.
"Upon the oath that you have taken, tell us, how did you think to escape from the Castle of Beaulieu between two planks of wood ?"(1)....(There is no fuller account of this attempt. It probably took place during the month of July, and may have been the reason for her removal to the stronger prison of Beaurevoir, early in August.)
"Never was I prisoner in such a place that I would not willingly have escaped. Being in that Castle, I should have shut my keepers in the tower, if it had not been that the porter espied me and encountered me. It did not please God that I should escape this time: it was necessary for me to see the English King, as my Voices had told me, and as has been already said."(2)....(Henry VI arrived in Rouen first on July 29th, 1430, when Jeanne was at Beaulieu; he was crowned at Paris in the following November, and returned to Rouen for Christmas, remaining there about six weeks, for the date of his landing at Dover is given as February 31st. It is not improbable that the prisoner may have seen the King, as they were both residing in the same Castle, and her windows looked on the fields, where he would probably take exercise.)
"Have you had permission from God or your Voices to leave prison when it shall please you?"
"I have asked it many times, but I have not yet had [permission."]
"Would you go now, if you saw your starting-point ?"
"If I saw the door open, I should go: that would be leave from Our Lord. If I saw the door open, and my keepers and the other English beyond power of resistance, truly I should see in it my permission and help sent me by Our Lord. But without this permission, I shall not go, unless I make a forcible attempt, and so learn if Our Lord would be pleased: this on the strength of the proverb, 'Help thyself, and God will help thee': I say this in order that, if I do escape, no one may say I did so without God's leave."(3)....("Faceret unam aggressionem;" Gallice, "une entreprise.")
"When you asked to hear Mass, did it not seem to you that it would be more proper to be in female dress? Which would you prefer, to have a woman's dress to hear Mass, or to remain in a man's dress and not hear it?"
"Give me assurance beforehand that I shall hear Mass if I am in female attire, and I will answer you this."
"Very well, I give you assurance of it: you shall hear Mass if you put on female attire."
"And what say you, if I have sworn and promised to our King my Master, not to put off this dress? Well, I will answer you this: Have made for me a long dress down to the ground, without a train; give it to me to go to Mass, and then on my return I will put on again the dress I have."
"I say it to you once again, do you consent to wear female attire to go and hear Mass?"
"I will take counsel on this, and then I will answer you: but I beseech you, for the honor of God and Our Lady, permit me to hear Mass in this good town."
"You consent simply and absolutely to take female attire?"
"Send me a dress like a daughter of your citizens that is to say, a long 'houppeland.' I will wear it to go and hear Mass. I beseech you as earnestly as I can, permit me to hear it in the dress I wear at this moment and without changing anything!"(4)....( In the Minute: "mesme le chaperon de femme.")
"Will you submit your actions and words to the decision of the Church?"
"My words and deeds are all in God's Hands: in all, I wait upon Him. I assure you, I would say or do nothing against the Christian Faith: in case I have done or said anything which might be on my soul and which the clergy could say was contrary to the Christian Faith established by Our Lord, I would not maintain it, and would put it away."
"Are you not willing to submit yourself in this to the order of the Church?"
"I will answer you nothing more about it now. Send me a cleric on Saturday; and, if you do not wish to come yourself, I will answer him upon this, with God's help; and it shall be put in writing."
"When your Voices come, do you make obeisance to them as to a Saint?"
"Yes; and if perchance I have not done so, I have afterwards asked of them grace and pardon. I should not know how to do them such great reverence as belongs to them, for I believe firmly they are Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. I believe the same of Saint Michael."
"For those who are Saints of Paradise, offerings are voluntarily made of candles, etc.: have you never made an offering of lighted candles, or other things, to the Saints who come to you, in the Church or elsewhere, or had Masses said?"
"No, unless it be in the offering of the Mass, in the hands of the Priest, in honor of Saint Catherine, one of the Saints who appeared to me. I have never lighted as many candles as I wish to Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who are in Paradise; and I firmly believe it is they who come to me."
"When you place lights before the image of Saint Catherine, do you place them in honor of the one who appears to you?"
"I do it in honor of God, of Our Lady, and of Saint Catherine who is in Heaven, and of her who appears to me."
"Do you place these lights in honor of Saint Catherine, who has shown herself to you, who has appeared to you ?"
"Yes, I make no difference between the one who has appeared to me, and the one who is in heaven." (5)....(In the Minute: "et ne fait point de defference ae celle qui est au ciel et celle qui se appert a moi.")
"Do you always do, and accomplish, what your Voices command you?"
"With all my power I accomplish the command that Our Lord sends me through my Voices, in so far as I understand them. My Voices command nothing but by the good pleasure of Our Lord."
"In warfare, have you done nothing without counsel of your Voices ?"
"I have already answered you thereon: read your book again well, and you will find it. At the request of the men-at-arms, there was an assault made before Paris, and, at the request of the King himself, one also before La Charite. These were neither against nor by the order of my Voices."
"Have you never done anything against their command and will?"
"All that I could and knew how to do, I have done and accomplished to the best of my power. As to the matter of the fall from the keep of Beaurevoir, I did it against their command; but I could not control myself. When my Voices saw my need, and that I neither knew how, nor was able, to control myself, they saved my life and kept me from killing myself. Whatever things I did in my greatest undertakings, they always helped me; and that is a sign they are good spirits."
"Have you no other sign that they are good spirits?"
"Saint Michael assured me of it before the Voices came to me."
"How did you know it was Saint Michael?"
"By the speech and language of the Angels. I believe firmly that they were Angels."
"But how did you know it was the language of Angels?"
"I believed it at once, and I had the will to believe it. When Saint Michael came to me, he said to me: 'Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret will come to thee; follow their counsel; they have been chosen to guide thee and counsel thee in all that you have to do: believe what they shall tell thee, it is the order of Our Lord.' "
"If the devil were to put himself in the form or likeness of an angel, how would you know if it were a good or an evil angel?"
"I should know quite well if it were Saint Michael or a counterfeit. The first time I was in great doubt if it were Saint Michael; and I was much afraid. I had seen him many times before I knew it was Saint Michael."
"Why did you recognize him sooner at that time, when you say you believed it was he, than when he first appeared to you?"
"The first time I was a young child, and I was much afraid; afterwards, he had taught me so well, and it was so clear to me, that I believed assuredly it was he." (6)....("Le vrai office de Monseigneur Saint-Michel est de faire grandes revelations aux hommes en bas, en leur donnant moult sainct conseils." - "Le Livre des Angèles de Diou."-M.S. in the Biblioteque Nationale, Paris.)
"What doctrine did he teach you?"
"Above all things he told me to be a good child, and that God would aid me to come to the help of the King of France, among other things. The greater part of what he taught me is already in the book in which you are writing: he told me of the great misery there was in the Kingdom of France."
"What was the height and appearance of this Angel?"
"On Saturday I will reply, with other things which I should answer, as it shall please God."
"Do you not think it a great sin, and one which offends Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret who appeared to you, to act against their commands?"
"Yes, certainly; and the greatest I have ever committed, in my opinion, has been the leap from the Tower of Beaurevoir; for the which I have besought their mercy, and for all other offenses , I may have done against them."
"Will Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret take bodily vengeance for this offense?"
"I do not know, and did not ask them."
"You have asserted that, for speaking the truth, men were sometimes hanged: do you, then, know any crime or fault in yourself for which you should die, if you confessed it ?"
"I know of none."
First of all, Jeanne was charitably exhorted, warned, and required, if she had done anything which might be against our Faith, that she should refer it to the decision of Holy Mother Church.
"Let my answers," she said, "be seen and examined by the Clergy: then let them tell me if there be anything against the Christian Faith. I shall know surely by my counsel what it is, and will say afterwards what shall be judged and decided. And, moreover, if there be anything wrong against the Christian Faith which Our Lord commanded, I should not wish to maintain it, and should be very sorry to be in opposition."
Then we explained to her about the Church Triumphant and the Church Militant, and the difference between them. [She was] required to submit to the decision of the Church Militant whatever she had said or done, whether of good or ill.
"I will answer you nothing more about it now," she said.
"Upon the oath that you have taken, tell us, how did you think to escape from the Castle of Beaulieu between two planks of wood ?"(1)....(There is no fuller account of this attempt. It probably took place during the month of July, and may have been the reason for her removal to the stronger prison of Beaurevoir, early in August.)
"Never was I prisoner in such a place that I would not willingly have escaped. Being in that Castle, I should have shut my keepers in the tower, if it had not been that the porter espied me and encountered me. It did not please God that I should escape this time: it was necessary for me to see the English King, as my Voices had told me, and as has been already said."(2)....(Henry VI arrived in Rouen first on July 29th, 1430, when Jeanne was at Beaulieu; he was crowned at Paris in the following November, and returned to Rouen for Christmas, remaining there about six weeks, for the date of his landing at Dover is given as February 31st. It is not improbable that the prisoner may have seen the King, as they were both residing in the same Castle, and her windows looked on the fields, where he would probably take exercise.)
"Have you had permission from God or your Voices to leave prison when it shall please you?"
"I have asked it many times, but I have not yet had [permission."]
"Would you go now, if you saw your starting-point ?"
"If I saw the door open, I should go: that would be leave from Our Lord. If I saw the door open, and my keepers and the other English beyond power of resistance, truly I should see in it my permission and help sent me by Our Lord. But without this permission, I shall not go, unless I make a forcible attempt, and so learn if Our Lord would be pleased: this on the strength of the proverb, 'Help thyself, and God will help thee': I say this in order that, if I do escape, no one may say I did so without God's leave."(3)....("Faceret unam aggressionem;" Gallice, "une entreprise.")
"When you asked to hear Mass, did it not seem to you that it would be more proper to be in female dress? Which would you prefer, to have a woman's dress to hear Mass, or to remain in a man's dress and not hear it?"
"Give me assurance beforehand that I shall hear Mass if I am in female attire, and I will answer you this."
"Very well, I give you assurance of it: you shall hear Mass if you put on female attire."
"And what say you, if I have sworn and promised to our King my Master, not to put off this dress? Well, I will answer you this: Have made for me a long dress down to the ground, without a train; give it to me to go to Mass, and then on my return I will put on again the dress I have."
"I say it to you once again, do you consent to wear female attire to go and hear Mass?"
"I will take counsel on this, and then I will answer you: but I beseech you, for the honor of God and Our Lady, permit me to hear Mass in this good town."
"You consent simply and absolutely to take female attire?"
"Send me a dress like a daughter of your citizens that is to say, a long 'houppeland.' I will wear it to go and hear Mass. I beseech you as earnestly as I can, permit me to hear it in the dress I wear at this moment and without changing anything!"(4)....( In the Minute: "mesme le chaperon de femme.")
"Will you submit your actions and words to the decision of the Church?"
"My words and deeds are all in God's Hands: in all, I wait upon Him. I assure you, I would say or do nothing against the Christian Faith: in case I have done or said anything which might be on my soul and which the clergy could say was contrary to the Christian Faith established by Our Lord, I would not maintain it, and would put it away."
"Are you not willing to submit yourself in this to the order of the Church?"
"I will answer you nothing more about it now. Send me a cleric on Saturday; and, if you do not wish to come yourself, I will answer him upon this, with God's help; and it shall be put in writing."
"When your Voices come, do you make obeisance to them as to a Saint?"
"Yes; and if perchance I have not done so, I have afterwards asked of them grace and pardon. I should not know how to do them such great reverence as belongs to them, for I believe firmly they are Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret. I believe the same of Saint Michael."
"For those who are Saints of Paradise, offerings are voluntarily made of candles, etc.: have you never made an offering of lighted candles, or other things, to the Saints who come to you, in the Church or elsewhere, or had Masses said?"
"No, unless it be in the offering of the Mass, in the hands of the Priest, in honor of Saint Catherine, one of the Saints who appeared to me. I have never lighted as many candles as I wish to Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, who are in Paradise; and I firmly believe it is they who come to me."
"When you place lights before the image of Saint Catherine, do you place them in honor of the one who appears to you?"
"I do it in honor of God, of Our Lady, and of Saint Catherine who is in Heaven, and of her who appears to me."
"Do you place these lights in honor of Saint Catherine, who has shown herself to you, who has appeared to you ?"
"Yes, I make no difference between the one who has appeared to me, and the one who is in heaven." (5)....(In the Minute: "et ne fait point de defference ae celle qui est au ciel et celle qui se appert a moi.")
"Do you always do, and accomplish, what your Voices command you?"
"With all my power I accomplish the command that Our Lord sends me through my Voices, in so far as I understand them. My Voices command nothing but by the good pleasure of Our Lord."
"In warfare, have you done nothing without counsel of your Voices ?"
"I have already answered you thereon: read your book again well, and you will find it. At the request of the men-at-arms, there was an assault made before Paris, and, at the request of the King himself, one also before La Charite. These were neither against nor by the order of my Voices."
"Have you never done anything against their command and will?"
"All that I could and knew how to do, I have done and accomplished to the best of my power. As to the matter of the fall from the keep of Beaurevoir, I did it against their command; but I could not control myself. When my Voices saw my need, and that I neither knew how, nor was able, to control myself, they saved my life and kept me from killing myself. Whatever things I did in my greatest undertakings, they always helped me; and that is a sign they are good spirits."
"Have you no other sign that they are good spirits?"
"Saint Michael assured me of it before the Voices came to me."
"How did you know it was Saint Michael?"
"By the speech and language of the Angels. I believe firmly that they were Angels."
"But how did you know it was the language of Angels?"
"I believed it at once, and I had the will to believe it. When Saint Michael came to me, he said to me: 'Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret will come to thee; follow their counsel; they have been chosen to guide thee and counsel thee in all that you have to do: believe what they shall tell thee, it is the order of Our Lord.' "
"If the devil were to put himself in the form or likeness of an angel, how would you know if it were a good or an evil angel?"
"I should know quite well if it were Saint Michael or a counterfeit. The first time I was in great doubt if it were Saint Michael; and I was much afraid. I had seen him many times before I knew it was Saint Michael."
"Why did you recognize him sooner at that time, when you say you believed it was he, than when he first appeared to you?"
"The first time I was a young child, and I was much afraid; afterwards, he had taught me so well, and it was so clear to me, that I believed assuredly it was he." (6)....("Le vrai office de Monseigneur Saint-Michel est de faire grandes revelations aux hommes en bas, en leur donnant moult sainct conseils." - "Le Livre des Angèles de Diou."-M.S. in the Biblioteque Nationale, Paris.)
"What doctrine did he teach you?"
"Above all things he told me to be a good child, and that God would aid me to come to the help of the King of France, among other things. The greater part of what he taught me is already in the book in which you are writing: he told me of the great misery there was in the Kingdom of France."
"What was the height and appearance of this Angel?"
"On Saturday I will reply, with other things which I should answer, as it shall please God."
"Do you not think it a great sin, and one which offends Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret who appeared to you, to act against their commands?"
"Yes, certainly; and the greatest I have ever committed, in my opinion, has been the leap from the Tower of Beaurevoir; for the which I have besought their mercy, and for all other offenses , I may have done against them."
"Will Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret take bodily vengeance for this offense?"
"I do not know, and did not ask them."
"You have asserted that, for speaking the truth, men were sometimes hanged: do you, then, know any crime or fault in yourself for which you should die, if you confessed it ?"
"I know of none."
"concern that refiners won't produce enough gasoline"
June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose for a seventh straight session as refinery malfunctions raised concern that refiners won't produce enough gasoline to meet peak demand this summer.
Operating rates jumped in nine of the last 12 weeks as refiners struggle to meet rising demand, U.S. government figures show. Royal Dutch/Shell Group shut two units at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery on May 30. Analysts were divided on whether a report tomorrow will show that oil supplies rose or fell last week after an unexpected supply decline the week ended May 20.
``We have some supply bottlenecks coupled with pretty strong product demand,'' said Marshall Steeves, an analyst with Refco Inc. in New York. ``We are continuing to rethink the direction of crude oil stocks after last week's surprise.''
Crude oil for July delivery rose 88 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $52.85 a barrel at 12:06 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures touched $53, the highest since May 10. Prices are up 25 percent from a year ago.
The rally is the longest since nine straight gains in sessions from Sept. 16 to 28, when Hurricane Ivan shut platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Shell said two reformer units at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery, the sixth-largest in the U.S., are in ``startup mode.'' The units will return to normal operations by tomorrow, Shell spokesman David McKinney said in an e-mailed statement. The refinery, a joint venture between Shell and Mexico's state oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, can process 340,000 barrels of crude oil a day, according to the company's Web site.
Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Baytown, Texas, oil refinery shut two furnaces at a unit that makes gasoline on May 23. The company said that the refinery was ``operating normally,'' according to an Exxon Mobil spokeswoman on May 25. The Baytown refinery, the nation's largest, can process 557,000 barrels of oil a day.
Refinery Operations
U.S. refineries operated at 94.6 percent of capacity the week ended May 20, according to the Energy Department, which will publish its next report on petroleum inventories tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. in Washington, a day later than usual because of the Memorial Day holiday two days ago.
Refiners may boost fuel output in June to take advantage of high profit margins, analysts said. The profit from making a barrel of crude oil into gasoline and heating oil rose to $9.892 today. The profit margin is based on the price of futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
``There is every incentive for refiners to crank out as much gasoline and distillate as they can,'' said Jason Schenker, an economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte. ``We are vulnerable to accidents and other refining problems because of how tight capacity is.''
U.S. Inventories
U.S. crude-oil supplies probably rose 250,000 barrels in the week ended May 27 from 332.4 million barrels the previous week, according to the median of forecasts by 13 analysts before an Energy Department report tomorrow. Seven of the analysts expected an increase, five a decline and one said they were unchanged. The U.S. consumes 25 percent of the world's oil.
U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell from a six-year high in the week ended May 20, declining by 1.6 million barrels, the department reported on May 25. An increase of 1.5 million barrels was expected, according to the median of forecasts.
In London, the July Brent crude-oil futures contract rose 89 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $51.62 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. Prices touched $51.72, the highest since May 10.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will probably decide to leave its oil production targets unchanged when it meets in Vienna on June 15, the group's president, Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah said today, according to Agence France-Presse. OPEC will keep exceeding the quota, al-Sabah, who is also Kuwait's oil minister, told reporters in Kuwait today.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Mark Shenk in New York at mshenk1@bloomberg.net.
Operating rates jumped in nine of the last 12 weeks as refiners struggle to meet rising demand, U.S. government figures show. Royal Dutch/Shell Group shut two units at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery on May 30. Analysts were divided on whether a report tomorrow will show that oil supplies rose or fell last week after an unexpected supply decline the week ended May 20.
``We have some supply bottlenecks coupled with pretty strong product demand,'' said Marshall Steeves, an analyst with Refco Inc. in New York. ``We are continuing to rethink the direction of crude oil stocks after last week's surprise.''
Crude oil for July delivery rose 88 cents, or 1.7 percent, to $52.85 a barrel at 12:06 p.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Futures touched $53, the highest since May 10. Prices are up 25 percent from a year ago.
The rally is the longest since nine straight gains in sessions from Sept. 16 to 28, when Hurricane Ivan shut platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Shell said two reformer units at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery, the sixth-largest in the U.S., are in ``startup mode.'' The units will return to normal operations by tomorrow, Shell spokesman David McKinney said in an e-mailed statement. The refinery, a joint venture between Shell and Mexico's state oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, can process 340,000 barrels of crude oil a day, according to the company's Web site.
Exxon Mobil Corp.'s Baytown, Texas, oil refinery shut two furnaces at a unit that makes gasoline on May 23. The company said that the refinery was ``operating normally,'' according to an Exxon Mobil spokeswoman on May 25. The Baytown refinery, the nation's largest, can process 557,000 barrels of oil a day.
Refinery Operations
U.S. refineries operated at 94.6 percent of capacity the week ended May 20, according to the Energy Department, which will publish its next report on petroleum inventories tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. in Washington, a day later than usual because of the Memorial Day holiday two days ago.
Refiners may boost fuel output in June to take advantage of high profit margins, analysts said. The profit from making a barrel of crude oil into gasoline and heating oil rose to $9.892 today. The profit margin is based on the price of futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
``There is every incentive for refiners to crank out as much gasoline and distillate as they can,'' said Jason Schenker, an economist at Wachovia Corp. in Charlotte. ``We are vulnerable to accidents and other refining problems because of how tight capacity is.''
U.S. Inventories
U.S. crude-oil supplies probably rose 250,000 barrels in the week ended May 27 from 332.4 million barrels the previous week, according to the median of forecasts by 13 analysts before an Energy Department report tomorrow. Seven of the analysts expected an increase, five a decline and one said they were unchanged. The U.S. consumes 25 percent of the world's oil.
U.S. crude oil stockpiles fell from a six-year high in the week ended May 20, declining by 1.6 million barrels, the department reported on May 25. An increase of 1.5 million barrels was expected, according to the median of forecasts.
In London, the July Brent crude-oil futures contract rose 89 cents, or 1.8 percent, to $51.62 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. Prices touched $51.72, the highest since May 10.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries will probably decide to leave its oil production targets unchanged when it meets in Vienna on June 15, the group's president, Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah said today, according to Agence France-Presse. OPEC will keep exceeding the quota, al-Sabah, who is also Kuwait's oil minister, told reporters in Kuwait today.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Mark Shenk in New York at mshenk1@bloomberg.net.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Jeanne - Things Getting Serious
The judges miscalculated. Maybe they thought they'd be through with her in 1 or 2 days tops. When that didn't happen, a lot of the judges had to go back to their jobs and duties. A core group remained, and they decided that, Jeanne was smarter and potentially more dangerous than they first thought. In order to speed up the 'Process' and maintain the pressure on Jeanne, they decided that she should be heard only in the prison area (without the relief of new surroundings such as the courts of the Castle).
THE PRIVATE EXAMINATIONS BEGIN
(In the text footnotes are in bold)
Deliberations March 4th through the 9th.
March 4th: The Bishop decrees that the Inquiries, if any are thought necessary, shall henceforth be made in private.
Afterwards, We, the Bishop, did say that, in pursuing this Process and without in any way discontinuing it, We would call before Us some Doctors and Masters, experts in law, religious and civil, in order, by them, to gather up and collect what shall seem to them of a nature to be gathered up and collected, in Jeanne's Declarations, as these have already been established by her own answers set down in writing. Their labor ended, if there should remain any points, on the which it would seem Jeanne should submit to more full inquire, We will make, for this supplementary examination, choice of certain Doctors; and in this manner We shall not fatigue all and each of the Masters, who, at this moment, assist Us in such great numbers. These new inquiries shall also be put into writing, in order that the above-named Doctors and other approved men of science may deliberate and furnish their opinion and advice at the right moment. In the meantime, We invite all the Assessors to study at home the Process, and what they have already gathered from it; to search out the consequences of which the affair is susceptible; and to submit the result of their deliberations either to Us, or to the Doctors who shall be appointed by Us - if they do not prefer rather to reserve themselves for the time and place when they shall have deliberated in full maturity; and to give their opinion on full knowledge of the Process.
In the meantime, We expressly forbid all and each to leave Rouen without Our permission before the full completion of the Process.
Meeting at the Bishop's house of several Doctors.
Sunday, March 4th, and the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of the same month, We, the Bishop, assembled in Our dwelling, many grave Doctors - and Masters-in-law, sacred and civil, who were charged by Us to collect all that has been confessed or answered by Jeanne in these Inquiries, and to extract there from the points on which she answered in an incomplete manner, and which seem to these Doctors susceptible of further examination. This double work having been effected by them, We, the said Bishop, by the advice of the said Doctors, decide that there is occasion to proceed to further inquiries. But because Our numerous occupations do not permit Us to attend ourselves, we appoint, to proceed therein, the venerable and discreet person, Jean Delafontaine, Master of Arts and Licentiate in Canon Law, who will interrogate the said Jeanne in Our name. (1)....(In spite of this assertion, the Bishop was present at four out of the nine Examinations.) We have for this appointed the 9th March, in presence of the Doctors and Masters, Jean Beaupère, Jacques de Touraine, Nicolas Midi, Pierre Maurice, Thomas de Courcelles, Nicolas Loyseleur, and Guillaume Manchon.
THE FIRST PRIVATE EXAMINATION
Saturday, March 10th, We, the Bishop, repaired to the part of the Castle of Rouen given to Jeanne as a prison, where, being assisted by Maitre Jean Delafontaine, the Commissary appointed by Us, and by the venerable Doctors and Masters in Theology, Nicolas Midi, and Gerard Feuillet (witnesses: Jean Fécard, Advocate; and Maître Jean Massieu, Priest).
We summoned Jeanne to make and take oath to speak the truth on what should be asked of her. She replied:
"I promise to speak truth on what touches your Case; but the more you constrain me to swear, the later will I tell you."
Afterwards, the examination of Jeanne by Maître Jean Delafontaine took place as follows:
"On the faith of the oath you have just taken, from whence had you started when you went the last time to Compiegne?"
"From Crespy, in Valois."
"When you were at Compiegne, were you several days before you made your sally or attack?"
"I arrived there secretly early in the morning,(2)....(On May 23rd, 1430.) and entered the town without the enemy knowing anything of it; and that same day, in the evening, I made the sally in which I was taken."
"When you made your sally, did they ring the bells?"
"If they did ring them it was not by my order or knowledge; I do not think it was so, and I do not remember to have said they rang."
"Did you make this sally by command of your Voice?"
"During the Easter week of last year, being in the trenches of Melun, it was told me by my Voices - that is to say, by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, 'You wilt be taken before Saint John's Day; and so it must be : do not torment thyself about it: be resigned; God will help thee.' "
"Before this occasion at Melun, had not your Voices ever told you that you would be taken?"
"Yes, many times and nearly every day. And I asked of my Voices that, when I should be taken, I might die soon, without long suffering in prison; and they said to me : 'Be resigned to all - thus it must be.' But they did not tell me the time; and if I had known it, I should not have gone. Often I asked to know the hour: they never told me."
"Did your Voices command you to make this sally from Compiegne, and signify that you would be taken if you went ?"
"If I had known the hour when I should be taken, I should never have gone of mine own free-will; I should always have obeyed their commands in the end, whatever might happen to me."
"When you made this sally from Compiegne had you any Voice or revelation about making it ?"
"That day I did not know at all that I should be taken, and I had no other command to go forth; but they had always told me it was necessary for me to be taken prisoner."
"When you made this sally, did you pass by the Bridge of Compiegne?"
"I passed by the bridge and the boulevard, and went with the company of followers of my side against the followers of my Lord of Luxembourg. I drove them back twice against the camp of the Burgundians, and the third time, to the middle of the highway. The English who were there then cut off the road from me and my people, between us and the boulevard. For this reason, my followers retreated, and, in retreating towards the fields, on the Picardy side, near the boulevard, I was taken. Between Compiegne and the place where I was taken there is nothing but the stream and the boulevard with its ditch."
"Did you not have on the banner you carried a representation of the world, painted with two angels, etc.?"
"Yes; and I had no other."
"What did this signify, to paint God holding the world, and these angels?"
"Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret told me that I was to take my banner and to carry it boldly, and to have painted on it the King of Heaven. I told my King, much against my will: that is all I can tell of the signification of this painting."
"Have you not a shield and arms?"
"I never had one; but my King has granted arms to my brothers, that is to say, a shield azure, two fleurs-de-lys of gold, and a sword betwixt. These arms I described in this town to a painter, because he asked what arms I bore. The King gave them to my brothers, [to please them,] (3)....(In the Minute only.) without request from me and without revelation."
"Had you, when you were taken, a horse, charger, or hackney?"
"I was on horseback; the one which I was riding when I was taken was a demi-charger."
"Who had given you this horse ?"
"My King, or his people, from the King's money. I had five chargers from the King's money, without counting my hacks, of which I had more than seven."
"Had you any other riches from your King besides these horses?"
"I asked nothing from my King, except good arms, good horses, and money to pay my household."
"Had you no treasure?"
"The ten or twelve thousand I was worth is not much treasure to carry on war, very little indeed ; and such goods are my brothers', in my opinion; what I have is my King's own money."
"What was the sign that came to your King when you went to him?"(4)....(Note in the Minute. Latin text reads : "quod dedit regi suo dum vernit ad eum.")
"It was beautiful, honorable, and most credible; the best and richest in the world."
"Then why will you not tell it and show it, since you wished to have the sign of Catherine de la Rochelle?"(5)....(The "sign," i.e. the appearance of "the White Lady.")
"I might not have asked to know the sign of the said Catherine, had that sign been as well shown before notable people of the Church and others, Archbishops and Bishops, as mine was before the Archbishop of Reims and other Bishops whose names I know not. There were there also Charles de Bourbon, the Sire de la Tremouille, the Duke d'Alencon,(6)....(Jean, Duke d'Alencon : son of the Duke killed at Agincourt. He was of the blood-royal of France, and had married a daughter of the Duke d'Orleans. Jeanne was on very friendly terms with him, and always called him her " Beau Duc.") and many other knights, who saw and heard it as well as I see those who speak to me today; and, besides, I knew already, through Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, that the doings of this Catherine were as nothing."
"Does this sign still last?"
"It is well to know it; it will last a thousand years and more. My sign is with the King's treasure."
"Is it gold, silver, precious stones, or a crown?"
"I will tell you nothing more about it. No man in the world could devise so rich a thing as this sign; but the sign that you need is that God may deliver me from your hands; that is the most sure sign He could send you. When I was about to start to see my King, my Voices told me: 'Go boldly; when you art before the King, he shall have a sure sign to receive thee and believe in thee.' "
"When the sign came to your King, what reverence did you make to it? Did it come from God?"
"I thanked Our Lord for having delivered me from the trouble that I had with the clergy of my party, who were arguing against me; and I knelt down several times. An Angel from God, and from none other, sent the sign to my King; and for this I have many times thanked Our Lord. The priests of that party ceased to attack me when they had recognized the sign."
"The Clergy of that party then saw the sign?"
"When my King and those who were with him had seen the sign and also the Angel that brought it, I asked my King if he were satisfied. He answered, Yes. Then I left, and went to a little chapel close by. I have since heard that, after I left, more than three hundred persons saw the said sign. For love of me and that I should not be questioned about it, God permitted certain men of my party to see the sign in reality."(7)....(The allegory of the Angel sent with a crown, here first given to avoid "perjury," i.e., breaking her promise to preserve the King's secret, is explained by Jeanne herself, on the last day of her life, to mean her own mission from Heaven to lead Charles to his crowning.)
"Your King and you, did you do reverence to the Angel who brought the sign?"
"Yes; I made a salutation, knelt down, and took off my cap."
THE PRIVATE EXAMINATIONS BEGIN
(In the text footnotes are in bold)
Deliberations March 4th through the 9th.
March 4th: The Bishop decrees that the Inquiries, if any are thought necessary, shall henceforth be made in private.
Afterwards, We, the Bishop, did say that, in pursuing this Process and without in any way discontinuing it, We would call before Us some Doctors and Masters, experts in law, religious and civil, in order, by them, to gather up and collect what shall seem to them of a nature to be gathered up and collected, in Jeanne's Declarations, as these have already been established by her own answers set down in writing. Their labor ended, if there should remain any points, on the which it would seem Jeanne should submit to more full inquire, We will make, for this supplementary examination, choice of certain Doctors; and in this manner We shall not fatigue all and each of the Masters, who, at this moment, assist Us in such great numbers. These new inquiries shall also be put into writing, in order that the above-named Doctors and other approved men of science may deliberate and furnish their opinion and advice at the right moment. In the meantime, We invite all the Assessors to study at home the Process, and what they have already gathered from it; to search out the consequences of which the affair is susceptible; and to submit the result of their deliberations either to Us, or to the Doctors who shall be appointed by Us - if they do not prefer rather to reserve themselves for the time and place when they shall have deliberated in full maturity; and to give their opinion on full knowledge of the Process.
In the meantime, We expressly forbid all and each to leave Rouen without Our permission before the full completion of the Process.
Meeting at the Bishop's house of several Doctors.
Sunday, March 4th, and the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th of the same month, We, the Bishop, assembled in Our dwelling, many grave Doctors - and Masters-in-law, sacred and civil, who were charged by Us to collect all that has been confessed or answered by Jeanne in these Inquiries, and to extract there from the points on which she answered in an incomplete manner, and which seem to these Doctors susceptible of further examination. This double work having been effected by them, We, the said Bishop, by the advice of the said Doctors, decide that there is occasion to proceed to further inquiries. But because Our numerous occupations do not permit Us to attend ourselves, we appoint, to proceed therein, the venerable and discreet person, Jean Delafontaine, Master of Arts and Licentiate in Canon Law, who will interrogate the said Jeanne in Our name. (1)....(In spite of this assertion, the Bishop was present at four out of the nine Examinations.) We have for this appointed the 9th March, in presence of the Doctors and Masters, Jean Beaupère, Jacques de Touraine, Nicolas Midi, Pierre Maurice, Thomas de Courcelles, Nicolas Loyseleur, and Guillaume Manchon.
THE FIRST PRIVATE EXAMINATION
Saturday, March 10th, We, the Bishop, repaired to the part of the Castle of Rouen given to Jeanne as a prison, where, being assisted by Maitre Jean Delafontaine, the Commissary appointed by Us, and by the venerable Doctors and Masters in Theology, Nicolas Midi, and Gerard Feuillet (witnesses: Jean Fécard, Advocate; and Maître Jean Massieu, Priest).
We summoned Jeanne to make and take oath to speak the truth on what should be asked of her. She replied:
"I promise to speak truth on what touches your Case; but the more you constrain me to swear, the later will I tell you."
Afterwards, the examination of Jeanne by Maître Jean Delafontaine took place as follows:
"On the faith of the oath you have just taken, from whence had you started when you went the last time to Compiegne?"
"From Crespy, in Valois."
"When you were at Compiegne, were you several days before you made your sally or attack?"
"I arrived there secretly early in the morning,(2)....(On May 23rd, 1430.) and entered the town without the enemy knowing anything of it; and that same day, in the evening, I made the sally in which I was taken."
"When you made your sally, did they ring the bells?"
"If they did ring them it was not by my order or knowledge; I do not think it was so, and I do not remember to have said they rang."
"Did you make this sally by command of your Voice?"
"During the Easter week of last year, being in the trenches of Melun, it was told me by my Voices - that is to say, by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, 'You wilt be taken before Saint John's Day; and so it must be : do not torment thyself about it: be resigned; God will help thee.' "
"Before this occasion at Melun, had not your Voices ever told you that you would be taken?"
"Yes, many times and nearly every day. And I asked of my Voices that, when I should be taken, I might die soon, without long suffering in prison; and they said to me : 'Be resigned to all - thus it must be.' But they did not tell me the time; and if I had known it, I should not have gone. Often I asked to know the hour: they never told me."
"Did your Voices command you to make this sally from Compiegne, and signify that you would be taken if you went ?"
"If I had known the hour when I should be taken, I should never have gone of mine own free-will; I should always have obeyed their commands in the end, whatever might happen to me."
"When you made this sally from Compiegne had you any Voice or revelation about making it ?"
"That day I did not know at all that I should be taken, and I had no other command to go forth; but they had always told me it was necessary for me to be taken prisoner."
"When you made this sally, did you pass by the Bridge of Compiegne?"
"I passed by the bridge and the boulevard, and went with the company of followers of my side against the followers of my Lord of Luxembourg. I drove them back twice against the camp of the Burgundians, and the third time, to the middle of the highway. The English who were there then cut off the road from me and my people, between us and the boulevard. For this reason, my followers retreated, and, in retreating towards the fields, on the Picardy side, near the boulevard, I was taken. Between Compiegne and the place where I was taken there is nothing but the stream and the boulevard with its ditch."
"Did you not have on the banner you carried a representation of the world, painted with two angels, etc.?"
"Yes; and I had no other."
"What did this signify, to paint God holding the world, and these angels?"
"Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret told me that I was to take my banner and to carry it boldly, and to have painted on it the King of Heaven. I told my King, much against my will: that is all I can tell of the signification of this painting."
"Have you not a shield and arms?"
"I never had one; but my King has granted arms to my brothers, that is to say, a shield azure, two fleurs-de-lys of gold, and a sword betwixt. These arms I described in this town to a painter, because he asked what arms I bore. The King gave them to my brothers, [to please them,] (3)....(In the Minute only.) without request from me and without revelation."
"Had you, when you were taken, a horse, charger, or hackney?"
"I was on horseback; the one which I was riding when I was taken was a demi-charger."
"Who had given you this horse ?"
"My King, or his people, from the King's money. I had five chargers from the King's money, without counting my hacks, of which I had more than seven."
"Had you any other riches from your King besides these horses?"
"I asked nothing from my King, except good arms, good horses, and money to pay my household."
"Had you no treasure?"
"The ten or twelve thousand I was worth is not much treasure to carry on war, very little indeed ; and such goods are my brothers', in my opinion; what I have is my King's own money."
"What was the sign that came to your King when you went to him?"(4)....(Note in the Minute. Latin text reads : "quod dedit regi suo dum vernit ad eum.")
"It was beautiful, honorable, and most credible; the best and richest in the world."
"Then why will you not tell it and show it, since you wished to have the sign of Catherine de la Rochelle?"(5)....(The "sign," i.e. the appearance of "the White Lady.")
"I might not have asked to know the sign of the said Catherine, had that sign been as well shown before notable people of the Church and others, Archbishops and Bishops, as mine was before the Archbishop of Reims and other Bishops whose names I know not. There were there also Charles de Bourbon, the Sire de la Tremouille, the Duke d'Alencon,(6)....(Jean, Duke d'Alencon : son of the Duke killed at Agincourt. He was of the blood-royal of France, and had married a daughter of the Duke d'Orleans. Jeanne was on very friendly terms with him, and always called him her " Beau Duc.") and many other knights, who saw and heard it as well as I see those who speak to me today; and, besides, I knew already, through Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret, that the doings of this Catherine were as nothing."
"Does this sign still last?"
"It is well to know it; it will last a thousand years and more. My sign is with the King's treasure."
"Is it gold, silver, precious stones, or a crown?"
"I will tell you nothing more about it. No man in the world could devise so rich a thing as this sign; but the sign that you need is that God may deliver me from your hands; that is the most sure sign He could send you. When I was about to start to see my King, my Voices told me: 'Go boldly; when you art before the King, he shall have a sure sign to receive thee and believe in thee.' "
"When the sign came to your King, what reverence did you make to it? Did it come from God?"
"I thanked Our Lord for having delivered me from the trouble that I had with the clergy of my party, who were arguing against me; and I knelt down several times. An Angel from God, and from none other, sent the sign to my King; and for this I have many times thanked Our Lord. The priests of that party ceased to attack me when they had recognized the sign."
"The Clergy of that party then saw the sign?"
"When my King and those who were with him had seen the sign and also the Angel that brought it, I asked my King if he were satisfied. He answered, Yes. Then I left, and went to a little chapel close by. I have since heard that, after I left, more than three hundred persons saw the said sign. For love of me and that I should not be questioned about it, God permitted certain men of my party to see the sign in reality."(7)....(The allegory of the Angel sent with a crown, here first given to avoid "perjury," i.e., breaking her promise to preserve the King's secret, is explained by Jeanne herself, on the last day of her life, to mean her own mission from Heaven to lead Charles to his crowning.)
"Your King and you, did you do reverence to the Angel who brought the sign?"
"Yes; I made a salutation, knelt down, and took off my cap."
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