M. BERGERET: “It is, however, very natural that this simple girl, having become a symbol of patriotism, should be claimed by all patriots.”
M. LANTAIGNE: “I cannot imagine—I have told you so before—nationality without religion. Every duty comes from God, the duty of the citizen no less than that of others. If God be ignored the call of duty is stilled. If it is a right and a duty to defend one’s native land against the foreigner, it is not in virtue of any pretended rights of man which never existed, but in conformity with the will of God. This conformity appears in the stories of Jael and Judith. It shines clearly in the book of the Maccabees. It can be read in the deeds of the Maid.”
M. BERGERET: “Then you believe, monsieur l’abbé, that Jeanne d’Arc received her mission from God Himself? That will land you in numberless difficulties. I will only submit to you one of these, because it is inherent in the nature of your beliefs. It relates to the voices and apparitions which manifested themselves to the peasant of Domremy. Those who grant that Saint Catherine really appeared to Jacquot d’Arc’s daughter, in company with Saint Michael and Saint Marguerite, will find themselves, I fancy, much embarrassed when it has been proved to them that this Saint Catherine of Alexandria never existed, and that her history is in reality only a rather poor Greek romance. Now this fact was proved as early as the seventeenth century, not by the freethinkers of the period, but by a learned doctor of the Sorbonne, Jean de Launoy, a man of piety and good life. The judicious Tillemont, although so submissive to the Church, rejected the biography of Saint Catherine as an absurd fable. Is not that a difficulty, monsieur l’abbé, for those who believe that the Voices of Jeanne d’Arc came from Heaven?”
M. LANTAIGNE: “The martyrology, monsieur, worthy of all reverence as it is, is not an article of faith; and it is permissible, in imitation of Doctor de Launoy and Tillemont, to cast doubts on the existence of Saint Catherine of Alexandria. For my part, I am not inclined to go so far, and I hold such an absolute denial as rash. I recognise that the biography of this saint has come to us from the East overlaid everywhere with fabulous details, but I believe that these embellishments have been laid over a solid foundation. Neither Launoy nor Tillemont is infallible. It is not certain that Saint Catherine never existed, and if by chance historic proof of her non-existence were established, that would give way before the theological testimony to the contrary, furnished by the miraculous appearances of this saint authenticated by the Ordinary and solemnly recognised by the Pope. For, after all, good logic requires that truths of the scientific plane should yield to truths of a higher order. But we are not yet in a position to know the opinion of the Church as to the Maid’s apparitions. Jeanne d’Arc has not been canonised, and the miracles wrought for her or by her are open to discussion: I neither deny nor affirm them, and it is a purely human vision which makes me perceive in the history of this marvellous girl the hand of God stretched out over France. Truth to tell, though, that vision is powerful and penetrating.”