Key notes in Scene 4

Following the conversational scene between Joan and Dunois, we now have a longer analysis of events between the Earl of Warwick, Chaplain de Stogumber and the Bishop of Beauvais. In this scene, the only one from which Joan is absent throughout, George Bernard Shaw makes explicit some of the major issues addressed in SAINT JOAN, notably the Maid’s foreshadowing of Protestantism in religion, and nationalism in politics.

Feudal fellowship allows the French bishop to enter the English camp and be warmly welcomed by the Earl of Warwick. The nobleman is keen to preserve the distinction between feudal territories such as Burgundy, Brittany, Picardy and Gascony, and deplores the notion of being classified as French or English: ‘If this cant of serving their country once takes hold of them, goodbye to the authority of their feudal lords, and goodbye to the authority of the Church’ (pg 87)

Warwick is more willing to give credence to the power of Dunois, as a fellow Christian pilgrim to the Holy Land, than to that of a woman he prefers to regard as a ‘village sorceress’ (pg 87). The feudal system and the Catholic Church both had international orientation, they were both very powerful so to speak.

Warwick’s family name is de Beauchamp, a clear reminder of the Norman dominance in English society since the conquest in 1066. A distant relative of the noble.

George Bernard Shaw holds names in reserve during the first part of the scene, foregrounding the men as types, in their opposition to Joan: nobleman and churchman. The introduction of proper names, all French in origin, cuts across the lines of demarcation anticipated by a modern audience, and shows just how radical Joan’s incipient Protestant nationalism was. In that light, de Stogumber’s crude patriotism appears decidedly ironic. He is especially vehement in his support for burning, and that intensity prepares us for the dramatic reversal he undergoes in Scene 6, after witnessing the execution. He is the opposition of Joan in that he seems entirely to lack imagination.

It is crucial to George Bernard Shaw’s characterization that the bishop is seen to be more measured and sensitive in his response to accusations of witchcraft. He insists on the processes of ecclesiastical law, and emphasizes the need for fairness. George Bernard Shaw was anxious that the bishop should be seen as a fanatic, although he does read Joan’s actions as diabolic in inspiration, and consequently he sees the threat she poses as leveled against the entire Catholic Church, and ‘the souls of the entire human race’ (pg 92).

When he speaks of the spread of heresy, Cauchon clearly has in mind the origins of what became Protestantism and created a vast rift within Christendom. His objection that Joan ‘acts as if she herself were The Church’ (pg 94) is exactly the charge that came to be leveled at later advocates of Protestant faith: ‘It is always God and herself’ (pg 95). The charge against her has to be heresy, rather than sorcery, and the bishop declares his first obligation to be salvation of the girl’s soul.

Cauchon campares Joan to Mahomet, the camel driver who became a prophet and founded Islam, a faith that spread to the verges of medieval France.

De Stogumber is outraged when Cauchon accuses Sir John Talbot be being ‘a mad bull’. We learn that Talbot was ‘three times Governor of Ireland’ (pg 92).

SAINT JOAN scene 4

Inside a tent in the English camp, a chaplain (John de Stogumber) is writing, while a nobleman (Richard de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick) reads an illustrated book. The chaplain is concerned that the English have started to lose battles; Orleans went to the French, and a series of similar losses have followed. The nobleman replies, realistically, that only in books and ballads do enemies go always undefeated. The men regard Joan as sorceress. Warwick is more anxious about the proven capabilities of Dunois. Nonetheless, he plans to offer a large sum of money for the betrayal of Joan, who will then be burnt for witchcraft.

A page announces the arrival of the Bishop of Beauvais, Peter Cauchon. Warwick welcomes him warmly. They discuss the imminent coronation of Charles VII. It is agreed that the crowning of the Dauphin is a strategic master-stroke. The Englishmen advocate that Joan should be tried for sorcery, and burned if found guilty. De Stogumber is especially vehement. Cauchon is more measured in his evaluation, and insists that a French court should be involved. He points out that Joan carries the names of Christ and the Virgin Mary on her banner, and suggests that there might conceivably have been divine sanction for her actions, although he favours a theory that the devil has been involved. He is angered by Warwick’s presumptuousness in assuming that he may act as the secular arm of the Church and oversee the burning of Joan. But the men are agreed that she poses a threat to them both and to the interests that they represent.

Warwick refers to Joan’s Protestantism. Cauchon warns against the dangerous rise of nationalistic sentiment, which he regards as anti-Christian in its divisiveness since it amounts to the dethroning of Christ. De Stognumber argues the case for an ‘England for the English’ policy (pg 99). He claims that the English are a privileged people with ‘peculiar fitness to rule over less civilized races for their own good’ (pg 100).