"No! Not even these chains"--and she shook them--"not even these chains

can chill the hopes that I uttered there. And more!"--she rose, and stood

a moment with a divine strange light kindling in her face, then her words

burst forth as in a flood--"I warn you now that before seven years a

disaster will smite the English, oh, many fold greater than the fall of

Orleans! and--"

"Silence! Sit down!"

"--and then, soon after, they will lose all France!"

Now consider these things. The French armies no longer existed. The

French cause was standing still, our King was standing still, there was

no hint that by and by the Constable Richemont would come forward and

take up the great work of Joan of Arc and finish it. In face of all this,

Joan made that prophecy--made it with perfect confidence--and it came

true. For within five years Paris fell--1436--and our King marched into

it flying the victor's flag. So the first part of the prophecy was then

fulfilled--in fact, almost the entire prophecy; for, with Paris in our

hands, the fulfilment of the rest of it was assured.

Twenty years later all France was ours excepting a single town--Calais.

Now that will remind you of an earlier prophecy of Joan's. At the time

that she wanted to take Paris and could have done it with ease if our

King had but consented, she said that that was the golden time; that,

with Paris ours, all France would be ours in six months. But if this

golden opportunity to recover France was wasted, said she, "I give you

twenty years to do it in."

She was right. After Paris fell, in 1436, the rest of the work had to be

done city by city, castle by castle, and it took twenty years to finish

it.

Yes, it was the first day of March, 1431, there in the court, that she

stood in the view of everybody and uttered that strange and incredible

prediction. Now and then, in this world, somebody's prophecy turns up

correct, but when you come to look into it there is sure to be

considerable room for suspicion that the prophecy was made after the

fact. But here the matter is different. There in that court Joan's

prophecy was set down in the official record at the hour and moment of

its utterance, years before the fulfilment, and there you may read it to

this day.

Twenty-five years after Joan's death the record was produced in the great

Court of the Rehabilitation and verified under oath by Manchon and me,

and surviving judges of our court confirmed the exactness of the record

in their testimony.

Joan' startling utterance on that now so celebrated first of March

stirred up a great turmoil, and it was some time before it quieted down

again. Naturally, everybody was troubled, for a prophecy is a grisly and

awful thing, whether one thinks it ascends from hell or comes down from

heaven.

All that these people felt sure of was, that the inspiration back of it

was genuine and puissant.

They would have given their right hands to know the source of it.

At last the questions began again.

"How do you know that those things are going to happen?"

"I know it by revelation. And I know it as surely as I know that you sit

here before me."

This sort of answer was not going to allay the spreading uneasiness.

Therefore, after some further dallying the judge got the subject out of

the way and took up one which he could enjoy more.

"What languages do your Voices speak?"

"French."

"St. Marguerite, too?"

"Verily; why not? She is on our side, not on the English!"

Saints and angels who did not condescend to speak English is a grave

affront. They could not be brought into court and punished for contempt,

but the tribunal could take silent note of Joan's remark and remember it

against her; which they did. It might be useful by and by.

"Do your saints and angels wear jewelry?--crowns, rings, earrings?"

To Joan, questions like these were profane frivolities and not worthy of

serious notice; she answered indifferently. But the question brought to

her mind another matter, and she turned upon Cauchon and said:

"I had two rings. They have been taken away from me during my captivity.

You have one of them. It is the gift of my brother. Give it back to me.

If not to me, then I pray that it be given to the Church."

The judges conceived the idea that maybe these rings were for the working

of enchantments.

Perhaps they could be made to do Joan a damage.

"Where is the other ring?"

"The Burgundians have it."

"Where did you get it?"

"My father and mother gave it to me."

"Describe it."

"It is plain and simple and has 'Jesus and Mary' engraved upon it."

Everybody could see that that was not a valuable equipment to do devil's

work with. So that trail was not worth following. Still, to make sure,

one of the judges asked Joan if she had ever cured sick people by

touching them with the ring. She said no.

"Now as concerning the fairies, that were used to abide near by Domremy

whereof there are many reports and traditions. It is said that your

godmother surprised these creatures on a summer's night dancing under the

tree called l'Arbre Fee de Bourlemont. Is it not possible that your

pretended saints and angles are but those fairies?"

"Is that in your proces?"

She made no other answer.

"Have you not conversed with St. Marguerite and St. Catherine under that

tree?"

"I do not know."

"Or by the fountain near the tree?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"What promises did they make you?"

"None but such as they had God's warrant for."

"But what promises did they make?"

"That is not in your proces; yet I will say this much: they told me that

the King would become master of his kingdom in spite of his enemies."

"And what else?"

There was a pause; then she said humbly:

"They promised to lead me to Paradise."

If faces do really betray what is passing in men's minds, a fear came

upon many in that house, at this time, that maybe, after all, a chosen

servant and herald of God was here being hunted to her death. The

interest deepened. Movements and whisperings ceased: the stillness became

almost painful.

Have you noticed that almost from the beginning the nature of the

questions asked Joan showed that in some way or other the questioner very

often already knew his fact before he asked his question? Have you

noticed that somehow or other the questioners usually knew just how and

were to search for Joan's secrets; that they really knew the bulk of her

privacies--a fact not suspected by her--and that they had no task before

them but to trick her into exposing those secrets?

Do you remember Loyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest, tool of

Cauchon? Do you remember that under the sacred seal of the confessional

Joan freely and trustingly revealed to him everything concerning her

history save only a few things regarding her supernatural revelations

which her Voices had forbidden her to tell to any one--and that the

unjust judge, Cauchon, was a hidden listener all the time?

Now you understand how the inquisitors were able to devise that long

array of minutely prying questions; questions whose subtlety and

ingenuity and penetration are astonishing until we come to remember

Loyseleur's performance and recognize their source. Ah, Bishop of

Beauvais, you are now lamenting this cruel iniquity these many years in

hell! Yes verily, unless one has come to your help. There is but one

among the redeemed that would do it; and it is futile to hope that that

one has not already done it--Joan of Arc.

We will return to the questionings.

"Did they make you still another promise?"

"Yes, but that is not in your proces. I will not tell it now, but before

three months I will tell it you."

The judge seems to know the matter he is asking about, already; one gets

this idea from his next question.

"Did your Voices tell you that you would be liberated before three

months?"

Joan often showed a little flash of surprise at the good guessing of the

judges, and she showed one this time. I was frequently in terror to find

my mind (which I could not control) criticizing the Voices and saying,

"They counsel her to speak boldly--a thing which she would do without any

suggestion from them or anybody else--but when it comes to telling her

any useful thing, such as how these conspirators manage to guess their

way so skilfully into her affairs, they are always off attending to some

other business."

I am reverent by nature; and when such thoughts swept through my head

they made me cold with fear, and if there was a storm and thunder at the

time, I was so ill that I could but with difficulty abide at my post and

do my work.

Joan answered:

"That is not in your proces. I do not know when I shall be set free, but

some who wish me out of this world will go from it before me."

It made some of them shiver.

"Have your Voices told you that you will be delivered from this prison?"

Without a doubt they had, and the judge knew it before he asked the

question.

"Ask me again in three months and I will tell you." She said it with such

a happy look, the tired prisoner! And I? And Noel Rainguesson, drooping

yonder?--why, the floods of joy went streaming through us from crown to

sole! It was all that we could do to hold still and keep from making

fatal exposure of our feelings.

She was to be set free in three months. That was what she meant; we saw

it. The Voices had told her so, and told her true--true to the very

day--May 30th. But we know now that they had mercifully hidden from her

how she was to be set free, but left her in ignorance. Home again!

That day was our understanding of it--Noel's and mine; that was our

dream; and now we would count the days, the hours, the minutes. They

would fly lightly along; they would soon be over.

Yes, we would carry our idol home; and there, far from the pomps and

tumults of the world, we would take up our happy life again and live it

out as we had begun it, in the free air and the sunshine, with the

friendly sheep and the friendly people for comrades, and the grace and

charm of the meadows, the woods, and the river always before our eyes and

their deep peace in our hearts. Yes, that was our dream, the dream that

carried us bravely through that three months to an exact and awful

fulfilment, the though of which would have killed us, I think, if we had

foreknown it and been obliged to bear the burden of it upon our hearts

the half of those weary days.

Our reading of the prophecy was this: We believed the King's soul was

going to be smitten with remorse; and that he would privately plan a

rescue with Joan's old lieutenants, D'Alencon and the Bastard and La

Hire, and that this rescue would take place at the end of the three

months. So we made up our minds to be ready and take a hand in it.

In the present and also in later sittings Joan was urged to name the

exact day of her deliverance; but she could not do that. She had not the

permission of her Voices. Moreover, the Voices themselves did not name

the precise day. Ever since the fulfilment of the prophecy, I have

believed that Joan had the idea that her deliverance was going to dome in

the form of death. But not that death! Divine as she was, dauntless as

she was in battle, she was human also. She was not solely a saint, an

angel, she was a clay-made girl also--as human a girl as any in the

world, and full of a human girl's sensitiveness and tenderness and

delicacies. And so, that death! No, she could not have lived the three

months with that one before her, I think. You remember that the first

time she was wounded she was frightened, and cried, just as any other

girl of seventeen would have done, although she had known for eighteen

days that she was going to be wounded on that very day. No, she was not

afraid of any ordinary death, and an ordinary death was what she believed

the prophecy of deliverance meant, I think, for her face showed

happiness, not horror, when she uttered it.

Now I will explain why I think as I do. Five weeks before she was

captured in the battle of Compiegne, her Voices told her what was coming.

They did not tell her the day or the place, but said she would be taken

prisoner and that it would be before the feast of St. John. She begged

that death, certain and swift, should be her fate, and the captivity

brief; for she was a free spirit, and dreaded the confinement. The Voices

made no promise, but only told her to bear whatever came. Now as they did

not refuse the swift death, a hopeful young thing like Joan would

naturally cherish that fact and make the most of it, allowing it to grow

and establish itself in her mind. And so now that she was told she was to

be "delivered" in three months, I think she believed it meant that she

would die in her bed in the prison, and that that was why she looked

happy and content--the gates of Paradise standing open for her, the time

so short, you see, her troubles so soon to be over, her reward so close

at hand. Yes, that would make her look happy, that would make her patient

and bold, and able to fight her fight out like a soldier. Save herself if

she could, of course, and try for the best, for that was the way she was

made; but die with her face to the front if die she must.

Then later, when she charged Cauchon with trying to kill her with a

poisoned fish, her notion that she was to be "delivered" by death in the

prison--if she had it, and I believe she had--would naturally be greatly

strengthened, you see.

But I am wandering from the trial. Joan was asked to definitely name the

time that she would be delivered from prison.

"I have always said that I was not permitted to tell you everything. I am

to be set free, and I desire to ask leave of my Voices to tell you the

day. That is why I wish for delay."

"Do your Voices forbid you to tell the truth?"

"Is it that you wish to know matters concerning the King of France? I

tell you again that he will regain his kingdom, and that I know it as

well as I know that you sit here before me in this tribunal." She sighed

and, after a little pause, added: "I should be dead but for this

revelation, which comforts me always."

Some trivial questions were asked her about St. Michael's dress and

appearance. She answered them with dignity, but one saw that they gave

her pain. After a little she said:

"I have great joy in seeing him, for when I see him I have the feeling

that I am not in mortal sin."

She added, "Sometimes St. Marguerite and St. Catherine have allowed me to

confess myself to them."

Here was a possible chance to set a successful snare for her innocence.

"When you confessed were you in mortal sin, do you think?"

But her reply did her no hurt. So the inquiry was shifted once more to

the revelations made to the King--secrets which the court had tried again

and again to force out of Joan, but without success.

"Now as to the sign given to the King--"

"I have already told you that I will tell you nothing about it."

"Do you know what the sign was?"

"As to that, you will not find out from me."

All this refers to Joan's secret interview with the King--held apart,

though two or three others were present. It was known--through Loyseleur,

of course--that this sign was a crown and was a pledge of the verity of

Joan's mission. But that is all a mystery until this day--the nature of

the crown, I mean--and will remain a mystery to the end of time. We can

never know whether a real crown descended upon the King's head, or only a

symbol, the mystic fabric of a vision.

"Did you see a crown upon the King's head when he received the

revelation?"

"I cannot tell you as to that, without perjury."

"Did the King have that crown at Rheims?"

"I think the King put upon his head a crown which he found there; but a

much richer one was brought him afterward."

"Have you seen that one?"

"I cannot tell you, without perjury. But whether I have seen it or not, I

have heard say that it was rich and magnificent."

They went on and pestered her to weariness about that mysterious crown,

but they got nothing more out of her. The sitting closed. A long, hard

day for all of us.

10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits' End

THE COURT rested a day, then took up work again on Saturday, the third of

March.

This was one of our stormiest sessions. The whole court was out of

patience; and with good reason. These threescore distinguished churchmen,

illustrious tacticians, veteran legal gladiators, had left important

posts where their supervision was needed, to journey hither from various

regions and accomplish a most simple and easy matter--condemn and send to

death a country-lass of nineteen who could neither read nor write, knew

nothing of the wiles and perplexities of legal procedure, could not call

a single witness in her defense, was allowed no advocate or adviser, and

must conduct her case by herself against a hostile judge and a packed

jury. In two hours she would be hopelessly entangled, routed, defeated,

convicted. Nothing could be more certain that this--so they thought. But

it was a mistake. The two hours had strung out into days; what promised

to be a skirmish had expanded into a siege; the thing which had looked so

easy had proven to be surprisingly difficult; the light victim who was to

have been puffed away like a feather remained planted like a rock; and on

top of all this, if anybody had a right to laugh it was the country-lass

and not the court.

She was not doing that, for that was not her spirit; but others were

doing it. The whole town was laughing in its sleeve, and the court knew

it, and its dignity was deeply hurt. The members could not hide their

annoyance.

And so, as I have said, the session was stormy. It was easy to see that

these men had made up their minds to force words from Joan to-day which

should shorten up her case and bring it to a prompt conclusion. It shows

that after all their experience with her they did not know her yet.

They went into the battle with energy. They did not leave the questioning

to a particular member; no, everybody helped. They volleyed questions at

Joan from all over the house, and sometimes so many were talking at once

that she had to ask them to deliver their fire one at a time and not by

platoons. The beginning was as usual:

"You are once more required to take the oath pure and simple."

"I will answer to what is in the proces verbal. When I do more, I will

choose the occasion for myself."

That old ground was debated and fought over inch by inch with great

bitterness and many threats. But Joan remained steadfast, and the

questionings had to shift to other matters. Half an hour was spent over

Joan's apparitions--their dress, hair, general appearance, and so on--in

the hope of fishing something of a damaging sort out of the replies; but

with no result.

Next, the male attire was reverted to, of course. After many well-worn

questions had been re-asked, one or two new ones were put forward.

"Did not the King or the Queen sometimes ask you to quit the male dress?"

"That is not in your proces."

"Do you think you would have sinned if you had taken the dress of your

sex?"

"I have done best to serve and obey my sovereign Lord and Master."

After a while the matter of Joan's Standard was taken up, in the hope of

connecting magic and witchcraft with it.

"Did not your men copy your banner in their pennons?"

"The lancers of my guard did it. It was to distinguish them from the rest

of the forces. It was their own idea."

"Were they often renewed?"

"Yes. When the lances were broken they were renewed."

The purpose of the question unveils itself in the next one.

"Did you not say to your men that pennons made like your banner would be

lucky?"

The soldier-spirit in Joan was offended at this puerility. She drew

herself up, and said with dignity and fire: "What I said to them was,

'Ride those English down!' and I did it myself."

Whenever she flung out a scornful speech like that at these French

menials in English livery it lashed them into a rage; and that is what

happened this time. There were ten, twenty, sometimes even thirty of them

on their feet at a time, storming at the prisoner minute after minute,

but Joan was not disturbed.

By and by there was peace, and the inquiry was resumed.

It was now sought to turn against Joan the thousand loving honors which

had been done her when she was raising France out of the dirt and shame

of a century of slavery and castigation.

"Did you not cause paintings and images of yourself to be made?"

"No. At Arras I saw a painting of myself kneeling in armor before the

King and delivering him a letter; but I caused no such things to be

made."

"Were not masses and prayers said in your honor?"

"If it was done it was not by my command. But if any prayed for me I

think it was no harm."

"Did the French people believe you were sent of God?"

"As to that, I know not; but whether they believed it or not, I was not

the less sent of God."

"If they thought you were sent of God, do you think it was well thought?"

"If they believed it, their trust was not abused."

"What impulse was it, think you, that moved the people to kiss your

hands, your feet, and your vestments?"

"They were glad to see me, and so they did those things; and I could not

have prevented them if I had had the heart. Those poor people came

lovingly to me because I had not done them any hurt, but had done the

best I could for them according to my strength."

See what modest little words she uses to describe that touching

spectacle, her marches about France walled in on both sides by the

adoring multitudes: "They were glad to see me." Glad?

Why they were transported with joy to see her. When they could not kiss

her hands or her feet, they knelt in the mire and kissed the hoof-prints

of her horse. They worshiped her; and that is what these priests were

trying to prove. It was nothing to them that she was not to blame for

what other people did. No, if she was worshiped, it was enough; she was

guilty of mortal sin.

Curious logic, one must say.

"Did you not stand sponsor for some children baptized at Rheims?"

"At Troyes I did, and at St. Denis; and I named the boys Charles, in

honor of the King, and the girls I named Joan."

"Did not women touch their rings to those which you wore?"

"Yes, many did, but I did not know their reason for it."

"At Rheims was your Standard carried into the church? Did you stand at

the altar with it in your hand at the Coronation?"

"Yes."

"In passing through the country did you confess yourself in the Churches

and receive the sacrament?"

"Yes."

"In the dress of a man?"

"Yes. But I do not remember that I was in armor."

It was almost a concession! almost a half-surrender of the permission

granted her by the Church at Poitiers to dress as a man. The wily court

shifted to another matter: to pursue this one at this time might call

Joan's attention to her small mistake, and by her native cleverness she

might recover her lost ground. The tempestuous session had worn her and

drowsed her alertness.

"It is reported that you brought a dead child to life in the church at

Lagny. Was that in answer to your prayers?"

"As to that, I have no knowledge. Other young girls were praying for the

child, and I joined them and prayed also, doing no more than they."

"Continue."

"While we prayed it came to life, and cried. It had been dead three days,

and was as black as my doublet. It was straight way baptized, then it

passed from life again and was buried in holy ground."

"Why did you jump from the tower of Beaurevoir by night and try to

escape?"

"I would go to the succor of Compiegne."

It was insinuated that this was an attempt to commit the deep crime of

suicide to avoid falling into the hands of the English.

"Did you not say that you would rather die than be delivered into the

power of the English?"

Joan answered frankly; without perceiving the trap:

"Yes; my words were, that I would rather that my soul be returned unto

God than that I should fall into the hands of the English."

It was now insinuated that when she came to, after jumping from the

tower, she was angry and blasphemed the name of God; and that she did it

again when she heard of the defection of the Commandant of Soissons. She

was hurt and indignant at this, and said:

"It is not true. I have never cursed. It is not my custom to swear."

11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination

A HALT was called. It was time. Cauchon was losing ground in the fight,

Joan was gaining it.

There were signs that here and there in the court a judge was being

softened toward Joan by her courage, her presence of mind, her fortitude,

her constancy, her piety, her simplicity and candor, her manifest purity,

the nobility of her character, her fine intelligence, and the good brave

fight she was making, all friendless and alone, against unfair odds, and

there was grave room for fear that this softening process would spread

further and presently bring Cauchon's plans in danger.

Something must be done, and it was done. Cauchon was not distinguished

for compassion, but he now gave proof that he had it in his character. He

thought it pity to subject so many judges to the prostrating fatigues of

this trial when it could be conducted plenty well enough by a handful of

them. Oh, gentle judge! But he did not remember to modify the fatigues

for the little captive.

He would let all the judges but a handful go, but he would select the

handful himself, and he did.

He chose tigers. If a lamb or two got in, it was by oversight, not

intention; and he knew what to do with lambs when discovered.

He called a small council now, and during five days they sifted the huge

bulk of answers thus far gathered from Joan. They winnowed it of all

chaff, all useless matter--that is, all matter favorable to Joan; they

saved up all matter which could be twisted to her hurt, and out of this

they constructed a basis for a new trial which should have the semblance

of a continuation of the old one. Another change. It was plain that the

public trial had wrought damage: its proceedings had been discussed all

over the town and had moved many to pity the abused prisoner. There

should be no more of that. The sittings should be secret hereafter, and

no spectators admitted. So Noel could come no more. I sent this news to

him. I had not the heart to carry it myself. I would give the pain a

chance to modify before I should see him in the evening.

On the 10th of March the secret trial began. A week had passed since I

had seen Joan. Her appearance gave me a great shock. She looked tired and

weak. She was listless and far away, and her answers showed that she was

dazed and not able to keep perfect run of all that was done and said.

Another court would not have taken advantage of her state, seeing that

her life was at stake here, but would have adjourned and spared her. Did

this one? No; it worried her for hours, and with a glad and eager

ferocity, making all it could out of this great chance, the first one it

had had.

She was tortured into confusing herself concerning the "sign" which had

been given the King, and the next day this was continued hour after hour.

As a result, she made partial revealments of particulars forbidden by her

Voices; and seemed to me to state as facts things which were but

allegories and visions mixed with facts.

The third day she was brighter, and looked less worn. She was almost her

normal self again, and did her work well. Many attempts were made to

beguile her into saying indiscreet things, but she saw the purpose in

view and answered with tact and wisdom.

"Do you know if St. Catherine and St. Marguerite hate the English?"

"They love whom Our Lord loves, and hate whom He hates."

"Does God hate the English?"

"Of the love or the hatred of God toward the English I know nothing."

Then she spoke up with the old martial ring in her voice and the old

audacity in her words, and added, "But I know this--that God will send

victory to the French, and that all the English will be flung out of

France but the dead ones!"

"Was God on the side of the English when they were prosperous in France?"

"I do not know if God hates the French, but I think that He allowed them

to be chastised for their sins."

It was a sufficiently naive way to account for a chastisement which had

now strung out for ninety-six years. But nobody found fault with it.

There was nobody there who would not punish a sinner ninety-six years if

he could, nor anybody there who would ever dream of such a thing as the

Lord's being any shade less stringent than men.

"Have you ever embraced St. Marguerite and St. Catherine?"

"Yes, both of them."

The evil face of Cauchon betrayed satisfaction when she said that.

"When you hung garlands upon L'Arbre Fee Bourlemont, did you do it in

honor of your apparitions?"

"No."

Satisfaction again. No doubt Cauchon would take it for granted that she

hung them there out of sinful love for the fairies.

"When the saints appeared to you did you bow, did you make reverence, did

you kneel?"

"Yes; I did them the most honor and reverence that I could."

A good point for Cauchon if he could eventually make it appear that these

were no saints to whom she had done reverence, but devils in disguise.

Now there was the matter of Joan's keeping her supernatural commerce a

secret from her parents. Much might be made of that. In fact, particular

emphasis had been given to it in a private remark written in the margin

of the proces: "She concealed her visions from her parents and from every

one." Possibly this disloyalty to her parents might itself be the sign of

the satanic source of her mission.

"Do you think it was right to go away to the wars without getting your

parents' leave? It is written one must honor his father and his mother."

"I have obeyed them in all things but that. And for that I have begged

their forgiveness in a letter and gotten it."

"Ah, you asked their pardon? So you knew you were guilty of sin in going

without their leave!"

Joan was stirred. Her eyes flashed, and she exclaimed:

"I was commanded of God, and it was right to go! If I had had a hundred

fathers and mothers and been a king's daughter to boot I would have

gone."

"Did you never ask your Voices if you might tell your parents?"

"They were willing that I should tell them, but I would not for anything

have given my parents that pain."

To the minds of the questioners this headstrong conduct savored of pride.

That sort of pride would move one to see sacrilegious adorations.

"Did not your Voices call you Daughter of God?"

Joan answered with simplicity, and unsuspiciously:

"Yes; before the siege of Orleans and since, they have several times

called me Daughter of God."

Further indications of pride and vanity were sought.

"What horse were you riding when you were captured? Who gave it you?"

"The King."

"You had other things--riches--of the King?"

"For myself I had horses and arms, and money to pay the service in my

household."

"Had you not a treasury?"

"Yes. Ten or twelve thousand crowns." Then she said with naivete "It was

not a great sum to carry on a war with."

"You have it yet?"

"No. It is the King's money. My brothers hold it for him."

"What were the arms which you left as an offering in the church of St.

Denis?"

"My suit of silver mail and a sword."

"Did you put them there in order that they might be adored?"

"No. It was but an act of devotion. And it is the custom of men of war

who have been wounded to make such offering there. I had been wounded

before Paris."

Nothing appealed to these stony hearts, those dull imaginations--not even

this pretty picture, so simply drawn, of the wounded girl-soldier hanging

her toy harness there in curious companionship with the grim and dusty

iron mail of the historic defenders of France. No, there was nothing in

it for them; nothing, unless evil and injury for that innocent creature

could be gotten out of it somehow.

"Which aided most--you the Standard, or the Standard you?"

"Whether it was the Standard or whether it was I, is nothing--the

victories came from God."

"But did you base your hopes of victory in yourself or in your Standard?"

"In neither. In God, and not otherwise."

"Was not your Standard waved around the King's head at the Coronation?"

"No. It was not."

"Why was it that your Standard had place at the crowning of the King in

the Cathedral of Rheims, rather than those of the other captains?"

Then, soft and low, came that touching speech which will live as long as

language lives, and pass into all tongues, and move all gentle hearts

wheresoever it shall come, down to the latest day:

"It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor." [1] How simple it is,

and how beautiful. And how it beggars the studies eloquence of the

masters of oratory. Eloquence was a native gift of Joan of Arc; it came

from her lips without effort and without preparation. Her words were as

sublime as her deeds, as sublime as her character; they had their source

in a great heart and were coined in a great brain.

[1] What she said has been many times translated, but never with success.

There is a haunting pathos about the original which eludes all efforts to

convey it into our tongue. It is as subtle as an odor, and escapes in the

transmission. Her words were these:

"Il avait ,t, a la peine, c'etait bien raison qu'il fut a l'honneur."

Monseigneur Ricard, Honorary Vicar-General to the Archbishop of Aix,

finely speaks of it (Jeanne d'Arc la Venerable, page 197) as "that

sublime reply, enduring in the history of celebrated sayings like the cry

of a French and Christian soul wounded unto death in its patriotism and

its faith." -- TRANSLATOR.

12 Joan's Master-Stroke Diverted

NOW, as a next move, this small secret court of holy assassins did a

thing so base that even at this day, in my old age, it is hard to speak

of it with patience.

In the beginning of her commerce with her Voices there at Domremy, the

child Joan solemnly devoted her life to God, vowing her pure body and her

pure soul to His service. You will remember that her parents tried to

stop her from going to the wars by haling her to the court at Toul to

compel her to make a marriage which she had never promised to make--a

marriage with our poor, good, windy, big, hard-fighting, and most dear

and lamented comrade, the Standard-Bearer, who fell in honorable battle

and sleeps with God these sixty years, peace to his ashes! And you will

remember how Joan, sixteen years old, stood up in that venerable court

and conducted her case all by herself, and tore the poor Paladin's case

to rags and blew it away with a breath; and how the astonished old judge

on the bench spoke of her as "this marvelous child."

You remember all that. Then think what I felt, to see these false

priests, here in the tribunal wherein Joan had fought a fourth lone fight

in three years, deliberately twist that matter entirely around and try to

make out that Joan haled the Paladin into court and pretended that he had

promised to marry her, and was bent on making him do it.

Certainly there was no baseness that those people were ashamed to stoop

to in their hunt for that friendless girl's life. What they wanted to

show was this--that she had committed the sin of relapsing from her vow

and trying to violate it.

Joan detailed the true history of the case, but lost her temper as she

went along, and finished with some words for Cauchon which he remembers

yet, whether he is fanning himself in the world he belongs in or has

swindled his way into the other.

The rest of this day and part of the next the court labored upon the old

theme--the male attire. It was shabby work for those grave men to be

engaged in; for they well knew one of Joan's reasons for clinging to the

male dress was, that soldiers of the guard were always present in her

room whether she was asleep or awake, and that the male dress was a

better protection for her modesty than the other.

The court knew that one of Joan's purposes had been the deliverance of

the exiled Duke of Orleans, and they were curious to know how she had

intended to manage it. Her plan was characteristically businesslike, and

her statement of it as characteristically simple and straightforward:

"I would have taken English prisoners enough in France for his ransom;

and failing that, I would have invaded England and brought him out by

force."

That was just her way. If a thing was to be done, it was love first, and

hammer and tongs to follow; but no shilly-shallying between. She added

with a little sigh:

"If I had had my freedom three years, I would have delivered him."

"Have you the permission of your Voices to break out of prison whenever

you can?"

"I have asked their leave several times, but they have not given it."

I think it is as I have said, she expected the deliverance of death, and

within the prison walls, before the three months should expire.

"Would you escape if you saw the doors open?"

She spoke up frankly and said:

"Yes--for I should see in that the permission of Our Lord. God helps who

help themselves, the proverb says. But except I thought I had permission,

I would not go."

Now, then, at this point, something occurred which convinces me, every

time I think of it--and it struck me so at the time--that for a moment,

at least, her hopes wandered to the King, and put into her mind the same

notion about her deliverance which Noel and I had settled upon--a rescue

by her old soldiers. I think the idea of the rescue did occur to her, but

only as a passing thought, and that it quickly passed away.

Some remark of the Bishop of Beauvais moved her to remind him once more

that he was an unfair judge, and had no right to preside there, and that

he was putting himself in great danger.

"What danger?" he asked.

"I do not know. St. Catherine has promised me help, but I do not know the

form of it. I do not know whether I am to be delivered from this prison

or whether when you sent me to the scaffold there will happen a trouble

by which I shall be set free. Without much thought as to this matter, I

am of the opinion that it may be one or the other." After a pause she

added these words, memorable forever--words whose meaning she may have

miscaught, misunderstood; as to that we can never know; words which she

may have rightly understood, as to that, also, we can never know; but

words whose mystery fell away from them many a year ago and revealed

their meaning to all the world:

"But what my Voices have said clearest is, that I shall be delivered by a

great victory." She paused, my heart was beating fast, for to me that

great victory meant the sudden bursting in of our old soldiers with the

war-cry and clash of steel at the last moment and the carrying off of

Joan of Arc in triumph. But, oh, that thought had such a short life! For

now she raised her head and finished, with those solemn words which men

still so often quote and dwell upon--words which filled me with fear,

they sounded so like a prediction. "And always they say 'Submit to

whatever comes; do not grieve for your martyrdom; from it you will ascend

into the Kingdom of Paradise."

Was she thinking of fire and the stake? I think not. I thought of it

myself, but I believe she was only thinking of this slow and cruel

martyrdom of chains and captivity and insult. Surely, martyrdom was the

right name for it.

It was Jean de la Fontaine who was asking the questions. He was willing

to make the most he could out of what she had said:

"As the Voices have told you you are going to Paradise, you feel certain

that that will happen and that you will not be damned in hell. Is that

so?"

"I believe what they told me. I know that I shall be saved."

"It is a weighty answer."

"To me the knowledge that I shall be saved is a great treasure."

"Do you think that after that revelation you could be able to commit

mortal sin?"

"As to that, I do not know. My hope for salvation is in holding fast to

my oath to keep by body and my soul pure."

"Since you know you are to be saved, do you think it necessary to go to

confession?"

The snare was ingeniously devised, but Joan's simple and humble answer

left it empty:

"One cannot keep his conscience too clean."

We were now arriving at the last day of this new trial. Joan had come

through the ordeal well. It had been a long and wearisome struggle for

all concerned. All ways had been tried to convict the accused, and all

had failed, thus far. The inquisitors were thoroughly vexed and

dissatisfied.

However, they resolved to make one more effort, put in one more day's

work. This was done--March 17th. Early in the sitting a notable trap was

set for Joan:

"Will you submit to the determination of the Church all your words and

deeds, whether good or bad?"

That was well planned. Joan was in imminent peril now. If she should

heedlessly say yes, it would put her mission itself upon trial, and one

would know how to decide its source and character promptly. If she should

say no, she would render herself chargeable with the crime of heresy.

But she was equal to the occasion. She drew a distinct line of separation

between the Church's authority over her as a subject member, and the

matter of her mission. She said she loved the Church and was ready to

support the Christian faith with all her strength; but as to the works

done under her mission, those must be judged by God alone, who had

commanded them to be done.

The judge still insisted that she submit them to the decision of the

Church. She said:

"I will submit them to Our Lord who sent me. It would seem to me that He

and His Church are one, and that there should be no difficulty about this

matter." Then she turned upon the judge and said, "Why do you make a

difficulty when there is no room for any?"

Then Jean de la Fontaine corrected her notion that there was but one

Church. There were two--the Church Triumphant, which is God, the saints,

the angels, and the redeemed, and has its seat in heave; and the Church

Militant, which is our Holy Father the Pope, Vicar of God, the prelates,

the clergy and all good Christians and Catholics, the which Church has

its seat in the earth, is governed by the Holy Spirit, and cannot err.

"Will you not submit those matters to the Church Militant?"

"I am come to the King of France from the Church Triumphant on high by

its commandant, and to that Church I will submit all those things which I

have done. For the Church Militant I have no other answer now."

The court took note of this straitly worded refusal, and would hope to

get profit out of it; but the matter was dropped for the present, and a

long chase was then made over the old hunting-ground--the fairies, the

visions, the male attire, and all that.

In the afternoon the satanic Bishop himself took the chair and presided

over the closing scenes of the trial. Along toward the finish, this

question was asked by one of the judges:

"You have said to my lord the Bishop that you would answer him as you

would answer before our Holy Father the Pope, and yet there are several

questions which you continually refuse to answer. Would you not answer

the Pope more fully than you have answered before my lord of Beauvais?

Would you not feel obliged to answer the Pope, who is the Vicar of God,

more fully?"

Now a thunder-clap fell out of a clear sky:

"Take me to the Pope. I will answer to everything that I ought to."

It made the Bishop's purple face fairly blanch with consternation. If

Joan had only known, if she had only know! She had lodged a mine under

this black conspiracy able to blow the Bishop's schemes to the four winds

of heaven, and she didn't know it. She had made that speech by mere

instinct, not suspecting what tremendous forces were hidden in it, and

there was none to tell her what she had done. I knew, and Manchon knew;

and if she had known how to read writing we could have hoped to get the

knowledge to her somehow; but speech was the only way, and none was

allowed to approach her near enough for that. So there she sat, once more

Joan of Arc the Victorious, but all unconscious of it. She was miserably

worn and tired, by the long day's struggle and by illness, or she must

have noticed the effect of that speech and divined the reason of it.

She had made many master-strokes, but this was the master-stroke. It was

an appeal to Rome. It was her clear right; and if she had persisted in it

Cauchon's plot would have tumbled about his ears like a house of cards,

and he would have gone from that place the worst-beaten man of the

century. He was daring, but he was not daring enough to stand up against

that demand if Joan had urged it. But no, she was ignorant, poor thing,

and did not know what a blow she had struck for life and liberty.

France was not the Church. Rome had no interest in the destruction of

this messenger of God.

Rome would have given her a fair trial, and that was all that her cause

needed. From that trial she would have gone forth free, and honored, and

blessed.

But it was not so fated. Cauchon at once diverted the questions to other

matters and hurried the trial quickly to an end.

As Joan moved feebly away, dragging her chains, I felt stunned and dazed,

and kept saying to myself, "Such a little while ago she said the saving

word and could have gone free; and now, there she goes to her death; yes,

it is to her death, I know it, I feel it. They will double the guards;

they will never let any come near her now between this and her

condemnation, lest she get a hint and speak that word again. This is the

bitterest day that has come to me in all this miserable time."

13 The Third Trial Fails

SO THE SECOND trial in the prison was over. Over, and no definite result.

The character of it I have described to you. It was baser in one

particular than the previous one; for this time the charges had not been

communicated to Joan, therefore she had been obliged to fight in the

dark.

There was no opportunity to do any thinking beforehand; there was no

foreseeing what traps might be set, and no way to prepare for them. Truly

it was a shabby advantage to take of a girl situated as this one was. One

day, during the course of it, an able lawyer of Normandy, Maetre Lohier,

happened to be in Rouen, and I will give you his opinion of that trial,

so that you may see that I have been honest with you, and that my

partisanship has not made me deceive you as to its unfair and illegal

character. Cauchon showed Lohier the proces and asked his opinion about

the trial. Now this was the opinion which he gave to Cauchon. He said

that the whole thing was null and void; for these reasons: 1, because the

trial was secret, and full freedom of speech and action on the part of

those present not possible; 2, because the trial touched the honor of the

King of France, yet he was not summoned to defend himself, nor any one

appointed to represent him; 3, because the charges against the prisoner

were not communicated to her; 4, because the accused, although young and

simple, had been forced to defend her cause without help of counsel,

notwithstanding she had so much at stake.

Did that please Bishop Cauchon? It did not. He burst out upon Lohier with

the most savage cursings, and swore he would have him drowned. Lohier

escaped from Rouen and got out of France with all speed, and so saved his

life.

Well, as I have said, the second trial was over, without definite result.

But Cauchon did not give up. He could trump up another. And still another

and another, if necessary. He had the half-promise of an enormous

prize--the Archbishopric of Rouen--if he should succeed in burning the

body and damning to hell the soul of this young girl who had never done

him any harm; and such a prize as that, to a man like the Bishop of

Beauvais, was worth the burning and damning of fifty harmless girls, let

alone one.

So he set to work again straight off next day; and with high confidence,

too, intimating with brutal cheerfulness that he should succeed this

time. It took him and the other scavengers nine days to dig matter enough

out of Joan's testimony and their own inventions to build up the new mass

of charges. And it was a formidable mass indeed, for it numbered

sixty-six articles.

This huge document was carried to the castle the next day, March 27th;

and there, before a dozen carefully selected judges, the new trial was

begun.

Opinions were taken, and the tribunal decided that Joan should hear the

articles read this time.

Maybe that was on account of Lohier's remark upon that head; or maybe it

was hoped that the reading would kill the prisoner with fatigue--for, as

it turned out, this reading occupied several days. It was also decided

that Joan should be required to answer squarely to every article, and

that if she refused she should be considered convicted. You see, Cauchon

was managing to narrow her chances more and more all the time; he was

drawing the toils closer and closer.

Joan was brought in, and the Bishop of Beauvais opened with a speech to

her which ought to have made even himself blush, so laden it was with

hypocrisy and lies. He said that this court was composed of holy and

pious churchmen whose hearts were full of benevolence and compassion

toward her, and that they had no wish to hurt her body, but only a desire

to instruct her and lead her into the way of truth and salvation.

Why, this man was born a devil; now think of his describing himself and

those hardened slaves of his in such language as that.

And yet, worse was to come. For now having in mind another of Lovier's

hints, he had the cold effrontery to make to Joan a proposition which, I

think, will surprise you when you hear it. He said that this court,

recognizing her untaught estate and her inability to deal with the

complex and difficult matters which were about to be considered, had

determined, out of their pity and their mercifulness, to allow her to

choose one or more persons out of their own number to help her with

counsel and advice!

Think of that--a court made up of Loyseleur and his breed of reptiles. It

was granting leave to a lamb to ask help of a wolf. Joan looked up to see

if he was serious, and perceiving that he was at least pretending to be,

she declined, of course.

The Bishop was not expecting any other reply. He had made a show of

fairness and could have it entered on the minutes, therefore he was

satisfied.

Then he commanded Joan to answer straitly to every accusation; and

threatened to cut her off from the Church if she failed to do that or

delayed her answers beyond a given length of time.

Yes, he was narrowing her chances down, step by step.

Thomas de Courcelles began the reading of that interminable document,

article by article. Joan answered to each article in its turn; sometimes

merely denying its truth, sometimes by saying her answer would be found

in the records of the previous trials.

What a strange document that was, and what an exhibition and exposure of

the heart of man, the one creature authorized to boast that he is made in

the image of God. To know Joan of Arc was to know one who was wholly

noble, pure, truthful, brave, compassionate, generous, pious, unselfish,

modest, blameless as the very flowers in the fields--a nature fine and

beautiful, a character supremely great. To know her from that document

would be to know her as the exact reverse of all that. Nothing that she

was appears in it, everything that she was not appears there in detail.

Consider some of the things it charges against her, and remember who it

is it is speaking of. It calls her a sorceress, a false prophet, an

invoker and companion of evil spirits, a dealer in magic, a person

ignorant of the Catholic faith, a schismatic; she is sacrilegious, an

idolater, an apostate, a blasphemer of God and His saints, scandalous,

seditious, a disturber of the peace; she incites men to war, and to the

spilling of human blood; she discards the decencies and proprieties of

her sex, irreverently assuming the dress of a man and the vocation of a

soldier; she beguiles both princes and people; she usurps divine honors,

and has caused herself to be adored and venerated, offering her hands and

her vestments to be kissed.

There it is--every fact of her life distorted, perverted, reversed. As a

child she had loved the fairies, she had spoken a pitying word for them

when they were banished from their home, she had played under their tree

and around their fountain--hence she was a comrade of evil spirits.

She had lifted France out of the mud and moved her to strike for freedom,

and led her to victory after victory--hence she was a disturber of the

peace--as indeed she was, and a provoker of war--as indeed she was again!

and France will be proud of it and grateful for it for many a century to

come. And she had been adored--as if she could help that, poor thing, or

was in any way to blame for it. The cowed veteran and the wavering

recruit had drunk the spirit of war from her eyes and touched her sword

with theirs and moved forward invincible--hence she was a sorceress.

And so the document went on, detail by detail, turning these waters of

life to poison, this gold to dross, these proofs of a noble and beautiful

life to evidences of a foul and odious one.

Of course, the sixty-six articles were just a rehash of the things which

had come up in the course of the previous trials, so I will touch upon

this new trial but lightly. In fact, Joan went but little into detail

herself, usually merely saying, "That is not true--passez outre"; or, "I

have answered that before--let the clerk read it in his record," or

saying some other brief thing.

She refused to have her mission examined and tried by the earthly Church.

The refusal was taken note of.

She denied the accusation of idolatry and that she had sought men's

homage. She said:

"If any kissed my hands and my vestments it was not by my desire, and I

did what I could to prevent it."

She had the pluck to say to that deadly tribunal that she did not know

the fairies to be evil beings. She knew it was a perilous thing to say,

but it was not in her nature to speak anything but the truth when she

spoke at all. Danger had no weight with her in such things. Note was

taken of her remark.

She refused, as always before, when asked if she would put off the male

attire if she were given permission to commune. And she added this:

"When one receives the sacrament, the manner of his dress is a small

thing and of no value in the eyes of Our Lord."

She was charge with being so stubborn in clinging to her male dress that

she would not lay it off even to get the blessed privilege of hearing

mass. She spoke out with spirit and said:

"I would rather die than be untrue to my oath to God."

She was reproached with doing man's work in the wars and thus deserting

the industries proper to her sex. She answered, with some little touch of

soldierly disdain:

"As to the matter of women's work, there's plenty to do it."

It was always a comfort to me to see the soldier spirit crop up in her.

While that remained in her she would be Joan of Arc, and able to look

trouble and fate in the face.

"It appears that this mission of yours which you claim you had from God,

was to make war and pour out human blood."

Joan replied quite simply, contenting herself with explaining that war

was not her first move, but her second:

"To begin with, I demanded that peace should be made. If it was refused,

then I would fight."

The judge mixed the Burgundians and English together in speaking of the

enemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she made

a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being

Frenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment than the

English. She said:

"As to the Duke of Burgundy, I required of him, both by letters and by

his ambassadors, that he make peace with the King. As to the English, the

only peace for them was that they leave the country and go home."

Then she said that even with the English she had shown a pacific

disposition, since she had warned them away by proclamation before

attacking them.

"If they had listened to me," said she, "they would have done wisely." At

this point she uttered her prophecy again, saying with emphasis, "Before

seven years they will see it themselves."

Then they presently began to pester her again about her male costume, and

tried to persuade her to voluntarily promise to discard it. I was never

deep, so I think it no wonder that I was puzzled by their persistency in

what seemed a thing of no consequence, and could not make out what their

reason could be. But we all know now. We all know now that it was another

of their treacherous projects. Yes, if they could but succeed in getting

her to formally discard it they could play a game upon her which would

quickly destroy her. So they kept at their evil work until at last she

broke out and said:

"Peace! Without the permission of God I will not lay it off though you

cut off my head!"

At one point she corrected the proces verbal, saying:

"It makes me say that everything which I have done was done by the

counsel of Our Lord. I did not say that, I said 'all which I have well

done.'"

Doubt was cast upon the authenticity of her mission because of the

ignorance and simplicity of the messenger chosen. Joan smiled at that.

She could have reminded these people that Our Lord, who is no respecter

of persons, had chosen the lowly for his high purposes even oftener than

he had chosen bishops and cardinals; but she phrased her rebuke in

simpler terms:

"It is the prerogative of Our Lord to choose His instruments where He

will."

She was asked what form of prayer she used in invoking counsel from on

high. She said the form was brief and simple; then she lifted her pallid

face and repeated it, clasping her chained hands:

"Most dear God, in honor of your holy passion I beseech you, if you love

me, that you will reveal to me what I am to answer to these churchmen. As

concerns my dress, I know by what command I have put it on, but I know

not in what manner I am to lay it off. I pray you tell me what to do."

She was charged with having dared, against the precepts of God and His

saints, to assume empire over men and make herself Commander-in-Chief.

That touched the soldier in her. She had a deep reverence for priests,

but the soldier in her had but small reverence for a priest's opinions

about war; so, in her answer to this charge she did not condescend to go

into any explanations or excuses, but delivered herself with bland

indifference and military brevity.

"If I was Commander-in-Chief, it was to thrash the English."

Death was staring her in the face here all the time, but no matter; she

dearly loved to make these English-hearted Frenchmen squirm, and whenever

they gave her an opening she was prompt to jab her sting into it. She got

great refreshment out of these little episodes. Her days were a desert;

these were the oases in it.

Her being in the wars with men was charged against her as an indelicacy.

She said:

"I had a woman with me when I could--in towns and lodgings. In the field

I always slept in my armor."

That she and her family had been ennobled by the King was charged against

her as evidence that the source of her deeds were sordid self-seeking.

She answered that she had not asked this grace of the King; it was his

own act.

This third trial was ended at last. And once again there was no definite

result.

Possibly a fourth trial might succeed in defeating this apparently

unconquerable girl. So the malignant Bishop set himself to work to plan

it.

He appointed a commission to reduce the substance of the sixty-six

articles to twelve compact lies, as a basis for the new attempt. This was

done. It took several days.

Meantime Cauchon went to Joan's cell one day, with Manchon and two of the

judges, Isambard de la Pierre and Martin Ladvenue, to see if he could not

manage somehow to beguile Joan into submitting her mission to the

examination and decision of the Church Militant--that is to say, to that

part of the Church Militant which was represented by himself and his

creatures.

Joan once more positively refused. Isambard de la Pierre had a heart in

his body, and he so pitied this persecuted poor girl that he ventured to

do a very daring thing; for he asked her if she would be willing to have

her case go before the Council of Basel, and said it contained as many

priests of her party as of the English party.

Joan cried out that she would gladly go before so fairly constructed a

tribunal as that; but before Isambard could say another word Cauchon

turned savagely upon him and exclaimed:

"Shut up, in the devil's name!"

Then Manchon ventured to do a brave thing, too, though he did it in great

fear for his life. He asked Cauchon if he should enter Joan's submission

to the Council of Basel upon the minutes.

"No! It is not necessary."

"Ah," said poor Joan, reproachfully, "you set down everything that is

against me, but you will not set down what is for me."

It was piteous. It would have touched the heart of a brute. But Cauchon

was more than that.

14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies

WE WERE now in the first days of April. Joan was ill. She had fallen ill

the 29th of March, the day after the close of the third trial, and was

growing worse when the scene which I have just described occurred in her

cell. It was just like Cauchon to go there and try to get some advantage

out of her weakened state.

Let us note some of the particulars in the new indictment--the Twelve

Lies.

Part of the first one says Joan asserts that she has found her salvation.

She never said anything of the kind. It also says she refuses to submit

herself to the Church. Not true. She was willing to submit all her acts

to this Rouen tribunal except those done by the command of God in

fulfilment of her mission. Those she reserved for the judgment of God.

She refused to recognize Cauchon and his serfs as the Church, but was

willing to go before the Pope or the Council of Basel.

A clause of another of the Twelve says she admits having threatened with

death those who would not obey her. Distinctly false. Another clause says

she declares that all she has done has been done by command of God. What

she really said was, all that she had done well--a correction made by

herself as you have already seen.

Another of the Twelve says she claims that she has never committed any

sin. She never made any such claim.

Another makes the wearing of the male dress a sin. If it was, she had

high Catholic authority for committing it--that of the Archbishop of

Rheims and the tribunal of Poitiers.

The Tenth Article was resentful against her for "pretending" that St.

Catherine and St.

Marguerite spoke French and not English, and were French in their

politics.

The Twelve were to be submitted first to the learned doctors of theology

of the University of Paris for approval. They were copied out and ready

by the night of April 4th. Then Manchon did another bold thing: he wrote

in the margin that many of the Twelve put statements in Joan's mouth

which were the exact opposite of what she had said. That fact would not

be considered important by the University of Paris, and would not

influence its decision or stir its humanity, in case it had any--which it

hadn't when acting in a political capacity, as at present--but it was a

brave thing for that good Manchon to do, all the same.

The Twelve were sent to Paris next day, April 5th. That afternoon there

was a great tumult in Rouen, and excited crowds were flocking through all

the chief streets, chattering and seeking for news; for a report had gone

abroad that Joan of Arc was sick until death. In truth, these long

seances had worn her out, and she was ill indeed. The heads of the

English party were in a state of consternation; for if Joan should die

uncondemned by the Church and go to the grave unsmirched, the pity and

the love of the people would turn her wrongs and sufferings and death

into a holy martyrdom, and she would be even a mightier power in France

dead than she had been when alive.

The Earl of Warwick and the English Cardinal (Winchester) hurried to the

castle and sent messengers flying for physicians. Warwick was a hard man,

a rude, coarse man, a man without compassion. There lay the sick girl

stretched in her chains in her iron cage--not an object to move man to

ungentle speech, one would think; yet Warwick spoke right out in her

hearing and said to the physicians:

"Mind you take good care of her. The King of England has no mind to have

her die a natural death. She is dear to him, for he bought her dear, and

he does not want her to die, save at the stake. Now then, mind you cure

her."

The doctors asked Joan what had made her ill. She said the Bishop of

Beauvais had sent her a fish and she thought it was that.

Then Jean d'Estivet burst out on her, and called her names and abused

her. He understood Joan to be charging the Bishop with poisoning her, you

see; and that was not pleasing to him, for he was one of Cauchon's most

loving and conscienceless slaves, and it outraged him to have Joan injure

his master in the eyes of these great English chiefs, these being men who

could ruin Cauchon and would promptly do it if they got the conviction

that he was capable of saving Joan from the stake by poisoning her and

thus cheating the English out of all the real value gainable by her

purchase from the Duke of Burgundy.

Joan had a high fever, and the doctors proposed to bleed her. Warwick

said:

"Be careful about that; she is smart and is capable of killing herself."

He meant that to escape the stake she might undo the bandage and let

herself bleed to death.

But the doctors bled her anyway, and then she was better.

Not for long, though. Jean d'Estivet could not hold still, he was so

worried and angry about the suspicion of poisoning which Joan had hinted

at; so he came back in the evening and stormed at her till he brought the

fever all back again.

When Warwick heard of this he was in a fine temper, you may be sure, for

here was his prey threatening to escape again, and all through the

over-zeal of this meddling fool. Warwick gave D'Estivet a quite admirable

cursing--admirable as to strength, I mean, for it was said by persons of

culture that the art of it was not good--and after that the meddler kept

still.

Joan remained ill more than two weeks; then she grew better. She was

still very weak, but she could bear a little persecution now without much

danger to her life. It seemed to Cauchon a good time to furnish it. So he

called together some of his doctors of theology and went to her dungeon.

Manchon and I went along to keep the record--that is, to set down what

might be useful to Cauchon, and leave out the rest.

The sight of Joan gave me a shock. Why, she was but a shadow! It was

difficult for me to realize that this frail little creature with the sad

face and drooping form was the same Joan of Arc that I had so often seen,

all fire and enthusiasm, charging through a hail of death and the

lightning and thunder of the guns at the head of her battalions. It wrung

my heart to see her looking like this.

But Cauchon was not touched. He made another of those conscienceless

speeches of his, all dripping with hypocrisy and guile. He told Joan that

among her answers had been some which had seemed to endanger religion;

and as she was ignorant and without knowledge of the Scriptures, he had

brought some good and wise men to instruct her, if she desired it. Said

he, "We are churchmen, and disposed by our good will as well as by our

vocation to procure for you the salvation of your soul and your body, in

every way in our power, just as we would do the like for our nearest kin

or for ourselves. In this we but follow the example of Holy Church, who

never closes the refuge of her bosom against any that are willing to

return."

Joan thanked him for these sayings and said:

"I seem to be in danger of death from this malady; if it be the pleasure

of God that I die here, I beg that I may be heard in confession and also

receive my Saviour; and that I may be buried in consecrated ground."

Cauchon thought he saw his opportunity at last; this weakened body had

the fear of an unblessed death before it and the pains of hell to follow.

This stubborn spirit would surrender now. So he spoke out and said:

"Then if you want the Sacraments, you must do as all good Catholics do,

and submit to the Church."

He was eager for her answer; but when it came there was no surrender in

it, she still stood to her guns. She turned her head away and said

wearily:

"I have nothing more to say."

Cauchon's temper was stirred, and he raised his voice threateningly and

said that the more she was in danger of death the more she ought to amend

her life; and again he refused the things she begged for unless she would

submit to the Church. Joan said:

"If I die in this prison I beg you to have me buried in holy ground; if

you will not, I cast myself upon my Saviour."

There was some more conversation of the like sort, then Cauchon demanded

again, and imperiously, that she submit herself and all her deeds to the

Church. His threatening and storming went for nothing. That body was

weak, but the spirit in it was the spirit of Joan of Arc; and out of that

came the steadfast answer which these people were already so familiar

with and detested so sincerely:

"Let come what may. I will neither do nor say any otherwise than I have

said already in your tribunals."

Then the good theologians took turn about and worried her with reasonings

and arguments and Scriptures; and always they held the lure of the

Sacraments before her famishing soul, and tried to bribe her with them to

surrender her mission to the Church's judgment--that is to their

judgment--as if they were the Church! But it availed nothing. I could

have told them that beforehand, if they had asked me. But they never

asked me anything; I was too humble a creature for their notice.

Then the interview closed with a threat; a threat of fearful import; a

threat calculated to make a Catholic Christian feel as if the ground were

sinking from under him:

"The Church calls upon you to submit; disobey, and she will abandon you

as if you were a pagan!"

Think of being abandoned by the Church!--that August Power in whose hands

is lodged the fate of the human race; whose scepter stretches beyond the

furthest constellation that twinkles in the sky; whose authority is over

millions that live and over the billions that wait trembling in purgatory

for ransom or doom; whose smile opens the gates of heaven to you, whose

frown delivers you to the fires of everlasting hell; a Power whose

dominion overshadows and belittles the pomps and shows of a village. To

be abandoned by one's King--yes, that is death, and death is much; but to

be abandoned by Rome, to be abandoned by the Church! Ah, death is nothing

to that, for that is consignment to endless life--and such a life!

I could see the red waves tossing in that shoreless lake of fire, I could

see the black myriads of the damned rise out of them and struggle and

sink and rise again; and I knew that Joan was seeing what I saw, while

she paused musing; and I believed that she must yield now, and in truth I

hoped she would, for these men were able to make the threat good and

deliver her over to eternal suffering, and I knew that it was in their

natures to do it.

But I was foolish to think that thought and hope that hope. Joan of Arc

was not made as others are made. Fidelity to principle, fidelity to

truth, fidelity to her word, all these were in her bone and in her

flesh--they were parts of her. She could not change, she could not cast

them out. She was the very genius of Fidelity; she was Steadfastness

incarnated. Where she had taken her stand and planted her foot, there she

would abide; hell itself could not move her from that place.

Her Voices had not given her permission to make the sort of submission

that was required, therefore she would stand fast. She would wait, in

perfect obedience, let come what might.

My heart was like lead in my body when I went out from that dungeon; but

she--she was serene, she was not troubled. She had done what she believed

to be her duty, and that was sufficient; the consequences were not her

affair. The last thing she said that time was full of this serenity, full

of contented repose:

"I am a good Christian born and baptized, and a good Christian I will

die."

15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning

TWO WEEKS went by; the second of May was come, the chill was departed out

of the air, the wild flowers were springing in the glades and glens, the

birds were piping in the woods, all nature was brilliant with sunshine,

all spirits were renewed and refreshed, all hearts glad, the world was

alive with hope and cheer, the plain beyond the Seine stretched away soft

and rich and green, the river was limpid and lovely, the leafy islands

were dainty to see, and flung still daintier reflections of themselves

upon the shining water; and from the tall bluffs above the bridge Rouen

was become again a delight to the eye, the most exquisite and satisfying

picture of a town that nestles under the arch of heaven anywhere.

When I say that all hearts were glad and hopeful, I mean it in a general

sense. There were exceptions--we who were the friends of Joan of Arc,

also Joan of Arc herself, that poor girl shut up there in that frowning

stretch of mighty walls and towers: brooding in darkness, so close to the

flooding downpour of sunshine yet so impossibly far away from it; so

longing for any little glimpse of it, yet so implacably denied it by

those wolves in the black gowns who were plotting her death and the

blackening of her good name.

Cauchon was ready to go on with his miserable work. He had a new scheme

to try now. He would see what persuasion could do--argument, eloquence,

poured out upon the incorrigible captive from the mouth of a trained

expert. That was his plan. But the reading of the Twelve Articles to her

was not a part of it. No, even Cauchon was ashamed to lay that

monstrosity before her; even he had a remnant of shame in him, away down

deep, a million fathoms deep, and that remnant asserted itself now and

prevailed.

On this fair second of May, then, the black company gathered itself

together in the spacious chamber at the end of the great hall of the

castle--the Bishop of Beauvais on his throne, and sixty-two minor judges

massed before him, with the guards and recorders at their stations and

the orator at his desk.

Then we heard the far clank of chains, and presently Joan entered with

her keepers and took her seat upon her isolated bench. She was looking

well now, and most fair and beautiful after her fortnight's rest from

wordy persecution.

She glanced about and noted the orator. Doubtless she divined the

situation.

The orator had written his speech all out, and had it in his hand, though

he held it back of him out of sight. It was so thick that it resembled a

book. He began flowing, but in the midst of a flowery period his memory

failed him and he had to snatch a furtive glance at his manuscript--which

much injured the effect. Again this happened, and then a third time. The

poor man's face was red with embarrassment, the whole great house was

pitying him, which made the matter worse; then Joan dropped in a remark

which completed the trouble. She said:

"Read your book--and then I will answer you!"

Why, it was almost cruel the way those moldy veterans laughed; and as for

the orator, he looked so flustered and helpless that almost anybody would

have pitied him, and I had difficulty to keep from doing it myself. Yes,

Joan was feeling very well after her rest, and the native mischief that

was in her lay near the surface. It did not show when she made the

remark, but I knew it was close in there back of the words.

When the orator had gotten back his composure he did a wise thing; for he

followed Joan's advice: he made no more attempts at sham impromptu

oratory, but read his speech straight from his "book." In the speech he

compressed the Twelve Articles into six, and made these his text.

Every now and then he stopped and asked questions, and Joan replied. The

nature of the Church Militant was explained, and once more Joan was asked

to submit herself to it.

She gave her usual answer.

Then she was asked:

"Do you believe the Church can err?"

"I believe it cannot err; but for those deeds and words of mine which

were done and uttered by command of God, I will answer to Him alone."

"Will you say that you have no judge upon earth? Is not our Holy Father

the Pope your judge?"

"I will say nothing about it. I have a good Master who is our Lord, and

to Him I will submit all."

Then came these terrible words:

"If you do not submit to the Church you will be pronounced a heretic by

these judges here present and burned at the stake!"

Ah, that would have smitten you or me dead with fright, but it only

roused the lion heart of Joan of Arc, and in her answer rang that martial

note which had used to stir her soldiers like a bugle-call:

"I will not say otherwise than I have said already; and if I saw the fire

before me I would say it again!"

It was uplifting to hear her battle-voice once more and see the

battle-light burn in her eye. Many there were stirred; every man that was

a man was stirred, whether friend or foe; and Manchon risked his life

again, good soul, for he wrote in the margin of the record in good plain

letters these brave words: "Superba responsio!" and there they have

remained these sixty years, and there you may read them to this day.

"Superba responsio!" Yes, it was just that. For this "superb answer" came

from the lips of a girl of nineteen with death and hell staring her in

the face.

Of course, the matter of the male attire was gone over again; and as

usual at wearisome length; also, as usual, the customary bribe was

offered: if she would discard that dress voluntarily they would let her

hear mass. But she answered as she had often answered before:

"I will go in a woman's robe to all services of the Church if I may be

permitted, but I will resume the other dress when I return to my cell."

They set several traps for her in a tentative form; that is to say, they

placed suppositious propositions before her and cunningly tried to commit

her to one end of the propositions without committing themselves to the

other. But she always saw the game and spoiled it. The trap was in this

form:

"Would you be willing to do so and so if we should give you leave?"

Her answer was always in this form or to this effect:

"When you give me leave, then you will know."

Yes, Joan was at her best that second of May. She had all her wits about

her, and they could not catch her anywhere. It was a long, long session,

and all the old ground was fought over again, foot by foot, and the

orator-expert worked all his persuasions, all his eloquence; but the

result was the familiar one--a drawn battle, the sixty-two retiring upon

their base, the solitary enemy holding her original position within her

original lines.

16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack

THE BRILLIANT weather, the heavenly weather, the bewitching weather made

everybody's heart to sing, as I have told you; yes, Rouen was feeling

light-hearted and gay, and most willing and ready to break out and laugh

upon the least occasion; and so when the news went around that the young

girl in the tower had scored another defeat against Bishop Cauchon there

was abundant laughter--abundant laughter among the citizens of both

parties, for they all hated the Bishop. It is true, the English-hearted

majority of the people wanted Joan burned, but that did not keep them

from laughing at the man they hated. It would have been perilous for

anybody to laugh at the English chiefs or at the majority of Cauchon's

assistant judges, but to laugh at Cauchon or D'Estivet and Loyseleur was

safe--nobody would report it.

The difference between Cauchon and cochon [1] was not noticeable in

speech, and so there was plenty of opportunity for puns; the

opportunities were not thrown away.

Some of the jokes got well worn in the course of two or three months,

from repeated use; for every time Cauchon started a new trial the folk

said "The sow has littered [2] again"; and every time the trial failed

they said it over again, with its other meaning, "The hog has made a mess

of it."

And so, on the third of May, Noel and I, drifting about the town, heard

many a wide-mouthed lout let go his joke and his laugh, and then move tot

he next group, proud of his wit and happy, to work it off again:

"'Od's blood, the sow has littered five times, and five times has made a

mess of it!"

And now and then one was bold enough to say--but he said it softly:

"Sixty-three and the might of England against a girl, and she camps on

the field five times!"

Cauchon lived in the great palace of the Archbishop, and it was guarded

by English soldiery; but no matter, there was never a dark night but the

walls showed next morning that the rude joker had been there with his

paint and brush. Yes, he had been thee, and had smeared the sacred walls

with pictures of hogs in all attitudes except flattering ones; hogs

clothed in a Bishop's vestments and wearing a Bishop's miter irreverently

cocked on the side of their heads.

Cauchon raged and cursed over his defeats and his impotence during seven

says; then he conceived a new scheme. You shall see what it was; for you

have not cruel hearts, and you would never guess it.

On the ninth of May there was a summons, and Manchon and I got out

materials together and started. But this time we were to go to one of the

other towers--not the one which was Joan's prison. It was round and grim

and massive, and built of the plainest and thickest and solidest

masonry--a dismal and forbidding structure. [3] We entered the circular

room on the ground floor, and I saw what turned me sick--the instruments

of torture and the executioners standing ready! Here you have the black

heart of Cauchon at the blackest, here you have the proof that in his

nature there was no such thing as pity. One wonders if he ever knew his

mother or ever had a sister.

Cauchon was there, and the Vice-Inquisitor and the Abbot of St.

Corneille; also six others, among them that false Loyseleur. The guards

were in their places, the rack was there, and by it stood the executioner

and his aids in their crimson hose and doublets, meet color for their

bloody trade. The picture of Joan rose before me stretched upon the rack,

her feet tied to one end of it, her wrists to the other, and those red

giants turning the windlass and pulling her limbs out of their sockets.

It seemed to me that I could hear the bones snap and the flesh tear

apart, and I did not see how that body of anointed servants of the

merciful Jesus could sit there and look so placid and indifferent.

After a little, Joan arrived and was brought in. She saw the rack, she

saw the attendants, and the same picture which I had been seeing must

have risen in her mind; but do you think she quailed, do you think she

shuddered? No, there was no sign of that sort. She straightened herself

up, and there was a slight curl of scorn about her lip; but as for fear,

she showed not a vestige of it.

This was a memorable session, but it was the shortest one of all the

list. When Joan had taken her seat a r,sum, of her "crimes" was read to

her. Then Cauchon made a solemn speech. It in he said that in the course

of her several trials Joan had refused to answer some of the questions

and had answered others with lies, but that now he was going to have the

truth out of her, and the whole of it.

Her manner was full of confidence this time; he was sure he had found a

way at last to break this child's stubborn spirit and make her beg and

cry. He would score a victory this time and stop the mouths of the jokers

of Rouen. You see, he was only just a man after all, and couldn't stand

ridicule any better than other people. He talked high, and his splotchy

face lighted itself up with all the shifting tints and signs of evil

pleasure and promised triumph--purple, yellow, red, green--they were all

there, with sometimes the dull and spongy blue of a drowned man, the

uncanniest of them all. And finally he burst out in a great passion and

said:

"There is the rack, and there are its ministers! You will reveal all now

or be put to the torture.

"Speak."

Then she made that great answer which will live forever; made it without

fuss or bravado, and yet how fine and noble was the sound of it:

"I will tell you nothing more than I have told you; no, not even if you

tear the limbs from my body. And even if in my pain I did say something

otherwise, I would always say afterward that it was the torture that

spoke and not I."

There was no crushing that spirit. You should have seen Cauchon. Defeated

again, and he had not dreamed of such a thing. I heard it said the next

day, around the town, that he had a full confession all written out, in

his pocket and all ready for Joan to sign. I do not know that that was

true, but it probably was, for her mark signed at the bottom of a

confession would be the kind of evidence (for effect with the public)

which Cauchon and his people were particularly value, you know.

No, there was no crushing that spirit, and no beclouding that clear mind.

Consider the depth, the wisdom of that answer, coming from an ignorant

girl. Why, there were not six men in the world who had ever reflected

that words forced out of a person by horrible tortures were not

necessarily words of verity and truth, yet this unlettered peasant-girl

put her finger upon that flaw with an unerring instinct. I had always

supposed that torture brought out the truth--everybody supposed it; and

when Joan came out with those simple common-sense words they seemed to

flood the place with light. It was like a lightning-flash at midnight

which suddenly reveals a fair valley sprinkled over with silver streams

and gleaming villages and farmsteads where was only an impenetrable world

of darkness before. Manchon stole a sidewise look at me, and his face was

full of surprise; and there was the like to be seen in other faces there.

Consider--they were old, and deeply cultured, yet here was a village maid

able to teach them something which they had not known before. I heard one

of them mutter:

"Verily it is a wonderful creature. She has laid her hand upon an

accepted truth that is as old as the world, and it has crumbled to dust

and rubbish under her touch. Now whence got she that marvelous insight?"

The judges laid their heads together and began to talk now. It was plain,

from chance words which one caught now and then, that Cauchon and

Loyseleur were insisting upon the application of the torture, and that

most of the others were urgently objecting.

Finally Cauchon broke out with a good deal of asperity in his voice and

ordered Joan back to her dungeon. That was a happy surprise for me. I was

not expecting that the Bishop would yield.

When Manchon came home that night he said he had found out why the

torture was not applied.

There were two reasons. One was, a fear that Joan might die under the

torture, which would not suit the English at all; the other was, that the

torture would effect nothing if Joan was going to take back everything

she said under its pains; and as to putting her mark to a confession, it

was believed that not even the rack would ever make her do that.

So all Rouen laughed again, and kept it up for three days, saying:

"The sow has littered six times, and made six messes of it."

And the palace walls got a new decoration--a mitered hog carrying a

discarded rack home on its shoulder, and Loyseleur weeping in its wake.

Many rewards were offered for the capture of these painters, but nobody

applied. Even the English guard feigned blindness and would not see the

artists at work.

The Bishop's anger was very high now. He could not reconcile himself to

the idea of giving up the torture. It was the pleasantest idea he had

invented yet, and he would not cast it by. So he called in some of his

satellites on the twelfth, and urged the torture again. But it was a

failure.

With some, Joan's speech had wrought an effect; others feared she might

die under torture; others did not believe that any amount of suffering

could make her put her mark to a lying confession. There were fourteen

men present, including the Bishop. Eleven of them voted dead against the

torture, and stood their ground in spite of Cauchon's abuse. Two voted

with the Bishop and insisted upon the torture. These two were Loyseleur

and the orator--the man whom Joan had bidden to "read his book"--Thomas

de Courcelles, the renowned pleader and master of eloquence.

Age has taught me charity of speech; but it fails me when I think of

those three names--Cauchon, Courcelles, Loyseleur.

[1] Hog, pig.

[2] Cochonner, to litter, to farrow; also, "to make a mess of"!

[3] The lower half of it remains to-day just as it was then; the upper

half is of a later date. -- TRANSLATOR.

17 Supreme in Direst Peril

ANOTHER ten days' wait. The great theologians of that treasury of all

valuable knowledge and all wisdom, the University of Paris, were still

weighing and considering and discussing the Twelve Lies.

I had had but little to do these ten days, so I spent them mainly in

walks about the town with Noel. But there was no pleasure in them, our

spirits being so burdened with cares, and the outlook for Joan growing

steadily darker and darker all the time. And then we naturally contrasted

our circumstances with hers: this freedom and sunshine, with her darkness

and chains; our comradeship, with her lonely estate; our alleviations of

one sort and another, with her destitution in all. She was used to

liberty, but now she had none; she was an out-of-door creature by nature

and habit, but now she was shut up day and night in a steel cage like an

animal; she was used to the light, but now she was always in a gloom

where all objects about her were dim and spectral; she was used to the

thousand various sounds which are the cheer and music of a busy life, but

now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the sentry pacing his

watch; she had been fond of talking with her mates, but now there was no

one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it was gone dumb now; she

had been born for comradeship, and blithe and busy work, and all manner

of joyous activities, but here were only dreariness, and leaden hours,

and weary inaction, and brooding stillness, and thoughts that travel by

day and night and night and day round and round in the same circle, and

wear the brain and break the heart with weariness. It was death in life;

yes, death in life, that is what it must have been. And there was another

hard thing about it all. A young girl in trouble needs the soothing

solace and support and sympathy of persons of her own sex, and the

delicate offices and gentle ministries which only these can furnish; yet

in all these months of gloomy captivity in her dungeon Joan never saw the

face of a girl or a woman. Think how her heart would have leaped to see

such a face.

Consider. If you would realize how great Joan of Arc was, remember that

it was out of such a place and such circumstances that she came week

after week and month after month and confronted the master intellects of

France single-handed, and baffled their cunningest schemes, defeated

their ablest plans, detected and avoided their secretest traps and

pitfalls, broke their lines, repelled their assaults, and camped on the

field after every engagement; steadfast always, true to her faith and her

ideals; defying torture, defying the stake, and answering threats of

eternal death and the pains of hell with a simple "Let come what may,

here I take my stand and will abide."

Yes, if you would realize how great was the soul, how profound the

wisdom, and how luminous the intellect of Joan of Arc, you must study her

there, where she fought out that long fight all alone--and not merely

against the subtlest brains and deepest learning of France, but against

the ignoble deceits, the meanest treacheries, and the hardest hearts to

be found in any land, pagan or Christian.

She was great in battle--we all know that; great in foresight; great in

loyalty and patriotism; great in persuading discontented chiefs and

reconciling conflicting interests and passions; great in the ability to

discover merit and genius wherever it lay hidden; great in picturesque

and eloquent speech; supremely great in the gift of firing the hearts of

hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of turning hares into

heroes, slaves and skulkers into battalions that march to death with

songs on their lips. But all these are exalting activities; they keep

hand and heart and brain keyed up to their work; there is the joy of

achievement, the inspiration of stir and movement, the applause which

hails success; the soul is overflowing with life and energy, the

faculties are at white heat; weariness, despondency, inertia--these do

not exist.

Yes, Joan of Arc was great always, great everywhere, but she was greatest

in the Rouen trials.

There she rose above the limitations and infirmities of our human nature,

and accomplished under blighting and unnerving and hopeless conditions

all that her splendid equipment of moral and intellectual forces could

have accomplished if they had been supplemented by the mighty helps of

hope and cheer and light, the presence of friendly faces, and a fair and

equal fight, with the great world looking on and wondering.

18 Condemned Yet Unafraid

TOWARD THE END of the ten-day interval the University of Paris rendered

its decision concerning the Twelve Articles. By this finding, Joan was

guilty upon all the counts: she must renounce her errors and make

satisfaction, or be abandoned to the secular arm for punishment.

The University's mind was probably already made up before the Articles

were laid before it; yet it took it from the fifth to the eighteenth to

produce its verdict. I think the delay may have been caused by temporary

difficulties concerning two points:

1. As to who the fiends were who were represented in Joan's Voices; 2. As

to whether her saints spoke French only.

You understand, the University decided emphatically that it was fiends

who spoke in those Voices; it would need to prove that, and it did. It

found out who those fiends were, and named them in the verdict: Belial,

Satan, and Behemoth. This has always seemed a doubtful thing to me, and

not entitled to much credit. I think so for this reason: if the

University had actually known it was those three, it would for very

consistency's sake have told how it knew it, and not stopped with the

mere assertion, since it had made Joan explain how she knew they were not

fiends. Does not that seem reasonable? To my mind the University's

position was weak, and I will tell you why. It had claimed that Joan's

angels were devils in disguise, and we all know that devils do disguise

themselves as angels; up to that point the University's position was

strong; but you see yourself that it eats its own argument when it turns

around and pretends that it can tell who such apparitions are, while

denying the like ability to a person with as good a head on her shoulders

as the best one the University could produce.

The doctors of the University had to see those creatures in order to

know; and if Joan was deceived, it is argument that they in their turn

could also be deceived, for their insight and judgment were surely not

clearer than hers.

As to the other point which I have thought may have proved a difficulty

and cost the University delay, I will touch but a moment upon that, and

pass on. The University decided that it was blasphemy for Joan to say

that her saints spoke French and not English, and were on the French side

in political sympathies. I think that the thing which troubled the

doctors of theology was this: they had decided that the three Voices were

Satan and two other devils; but they had also decided that these Voices

were not on the French side--thereby tacitly asserting that they were on

the English side; and if on the English side, then they must be angels

and not devils. Otherwise, the situation was embarrassing. You see, the

University being the wisest and deepest and most erudite body in the

world, it would like to be logical if it could, for the sake of its

reputation; therefore it would study and study, days and days, trying to

find some good common-sense reason for proving the Voices to be devils in

Article No. 1 and proving them to be angels in Article No. 10. However,

they had to give it up. They found no way out; and so, to this day, the

University's verdict remains just so--devils in No. 1, angels in No. 10;

and no way to reconcile the discrepancy.

The envoys brought the verdict to Rouen, and with it a letter for Cauchon

which was full of fervid praise. The University complimented him on his

zeal in hunting down this woman "whose venom had infected the faithful of

the whole West," and as recompense it as good as promised him "a crown of

imperishable glory in heaven." Only that!--a crown in heaven; a

promissory note and no indorser; always something away off yonder; not a

word about the Archbishopric of Rouen, which was the thing Cauchon was

destroying his soul for. A crown in heaven; it must have sounded like a

sarcasm to him, after all his hard work. What should he do in heaven? he

did not know anybody there.

On the nineteenth of May a court of fifty judges sat in the

archiepiscopal palace to discuss Joan's fate. A few wanted her delivered

over to the secular arm at once for punishment, but the rest insisted

that she be once more "charitably admonished" first.

So the same court met in the castle on the twenty-third, and Joan was

brought to the bar. Pierre Maurice, a canon of Rouen, made a speech to

Joan in which he admonished her to save her life and her soul by

renouncing her errors and surrendering to the Church. He finished with a

stern threat: if she remained obstinate the damnation of her soul was

certain, the destruction of her body probable. But Joan was immovable.

She said:

"If I were under sentence, and saw the fire before me, and the

executioner ready to light it--more, if I were in the fire itself, I

would say none but the things which I have said in these trials; and I

would abide by them till I died."

A deep silence followed now, which endured some moments. It lay upon me

like a weight. I knew it for an omen. Then Cauchon, grave and solemn,

turned to Pierre Maurice:

"Have you anything further to say?"

The priest bowed low, and said:

"Nothing, my lord."

"Prisoner at the bar, have you anything further to say?"

"Nothing."

"Then the debate is closed. To-morrow, sentence will be pronounced.

Remove the prisoner."

She seemed to go from the place erect and noble. But I do not know; my

sight was dim with tears.

To-morrow--twenty-fourth of May! Exactly a year since I saw her go

speeding across the plain at the head of her troops, her silver helmet

shining, her silvery cape fluttering in the wind, her white plumes

flowing, her sword held aloft; saw her charge the Burgundian camp three

times, and carry it; saw her wheel to the right and spur for the duke's

reserves; saws her fling herself against it in the last assault she was

ever to make. And now that fatal day was come again--and see what it was

bringing!

19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail

JOAN HAD been adjudged guilty of heresy, sorcery, and all the other

terrible crimes set forth in the Twelve Articles, and her life was in

Cauchon's hands at last. He could send her to the stake at once. His work

was finished now, you think? He was satisfied? Not at all. What would his

Archbishopric be worth if the people should get the idea into their heads

that this faction of interested priests, slaving under the English lash,

had wrongly condemned and burned Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France? That

would be to make of her a holy martyr. Then her spirit would rise from

her body's ashes, a thousandfold reinforced, and sweep the English

domination into the sea, and Cauchon along with it. No, the victory was

not complete yet. Joan's guilt must be established by evidence which

would satisfy the people. Where was that evidence to be found? There was

only one person in the world who could furnish it--Joan of Arc herself.

She must condemn herself, and in public--at least she must seem to do it.

But how was this to be managed? Weeks had been spent already in trying to

get her to surrender--time wholly wasted; what was to persuade her now?

Torture had been threatened, the fire had been threatened; what was left?

Illness, deadly fatigue, and the sight of the fire, the presence of the

fire! That was left.

Now that was a shrewd thought. She was but a girl after all, and, under

illness and exhaustion, subject to a girl's weaknesses.

Yes, it was shrewdly thought. She had tacitly said herself that under the

bitter pains of the rack they would be able to extort a false confession

from her. It was a hint worth remembering, and it was remembered.

She had furnished another hint at the same time: that as soon as the

pains were gone, she would retract the confession. That hint was also

remembered.

She had herself taught them what to do, you see. First, they must wear

out her strength, then frighten her with the fire. Second, while the

fright was on her, she must be made to sign a paper.

But she would demand a reading of the paper. They could not venture to

refuse this, with the public there to hear. Suppose that during the

reading her courage should return?--she would refuse to sign then. Very

well, even that difficulty could be got over. They could read a short

paper of no importance, then slip a long and deadly one into its place

and trick her into signing that.

Yet there was still one other difficulty. If they made her seem to

abjure, that would free her from the death-penalty. They could keep her

in a prison of the Church, but they could not kill her.

That would not answer; for only her death would content the English.

Alive she was a terror, in a prison or out of it. She had escaped from

two prisons already.

But even that difficulty could be managed. Cauchon would make promises to

her; in return she would promise to leave off the male dress. He would

violate his promises, and that would so situate her that she would not be

able to keep hers. Her lapse would condemn her to the stake, and the

stake would be ready.

These were the several moves; there was nothing to do but to make them,

each in its order, and the game was won. One might almost name the day

that the betrayed girl, the most innocent creature in France and the

noblest, would go to her pitiful death.

The world knows now that Cauchon's plan was as I have sketched it to you,

but the world did not know it at that time. There are sufficient

indications that Warwick and all the other English chiefs except the

highest one--the Cardinal of Winchester--were not let into the secret,

also, that only Loyseleur and Beaupere, on the French side, knew the

scheme. Sometimes I have doubted if even Loyseleur and Beaupere knew the

whole of it at first. However, if any did, it was these two.

It is usual to let the condemned pass their last night of life in peace,

but this grace was denied to poor Joan, if one may credit the rumors of

the time. Loyseleur was smuggled into her presence, and in the character

of priest, friend, and secret partisan of France and hater of England, he

spent some hours in beseeching her to do "the only right an righteous

thing"--submit to the Church, as a good Christian should; and that then

she would straightway get out of the clutches of the dreaded English and

be transferred to the Church's prison, where she would be honorably used

and have women about her for jailers. He knew where to touch her. He knew

how odious to her was the presence of her rough and profane English

guards; he knew that her Voices had vaguely promised something which she

interpreted to be escape, rescue, release of some sort, and the chance to

burst upon France once more and victoriously complete the great work

which she had been commissioned of Heaven to do. Also there was that

other thing: if her failing body could be further weakened by loss of

rest and sleep now, her tired mind would be dazed and drowsy on the

morrow, and in ill condition to stand out against persuasions, threats,

and the sight of the stake, and also be purblind to traps and snares

which it would be swift to detect when in its normal estate.

I do not need to tell you that there was no rest for me that night. Nor

for Noel. We went to the main gate of the city before nightfall, with a

hope in our minds, based upon that vague prophecy of Joan's Voices which

seemed to promise a rescue by force at the last moment. The immense news

had flown swiftly far and wide that at last Joan of Arc was condemned,

and would be sentenced and burned alive on the morrow; and so crowds of

people were flowing in at the gate, and other crowds were being refused

admission by the soldiery; these being people who brought doubtful passes

or none at all. We scanned these crowds eagerly, but thee was nothing

about them to indicate that they were our old war-comrades in disguise,

and certainly there were no familiar faces among them. And so, when the

gate was closed at last, we turned away grieved, and more disappointed

than we cared to admit, either in speech or thought.

The streets were surging tides of excited men. It was difficult to make

one's way. Toward midnight our aimless tramp brought us to the

neighborhood of the beautiful church of St. Ouen, and there all was

bustle and work. The square was a wilderness of torches and people; and

through a guarded passage dividing the pack, laborers were carrying

planks and timbers and disappearing with them through the gate of the

churchyard. We asked what was going forward; the answer was:

"Scaffolds and the stake. Don't you know that the French witch is to be

burned in the morning?"

Then we went away. We had no heart for that place.

At dawn we were at the city gate again; this time with a hope which our

wearied bodies and fevered minds magnified into a large probability. We

had heard a report that the Abbot of Jumieges with all his monks was

coming to witness the burning. Our desire, abetted by our imagination,

turned those nine hundred monks into Joan's old campaigners, and their

Abbot into La Hire or the Bastard or D'Alencon; and we watched them file

in, unchallenged, the multitude respectfully dividing and uncovering

while they passed, with our hearts in our throats and our eyes swimming

with tears of joy and pride and exultation; and we tried to catch

glimpses of the faces under the cowls, and were prepared to give signal

to any recognized face that we were Joan's men and ready and eager to

kill and be killed in the good cause. How foolish we were!

But we were young, you know, and youth hopeth all things, believeth all

things.

20 The Betrayal

IN THE MORNING I was at my official post. It was on a platform raised the

height of a man, in the churchyard, under the eaves of St. Ouen. On this

same platform was a crowd of priests and important citizens, and several

lawyers. Abreast it, with a small space between, was another and larger

platform, handsomely canopied against sun and rain, and richly carpeted;

also it was furnished with comfortable chairs, and with two which were

more sumptuous than the others, and raised above the general level. One

of these two was occupied by a prince of the royal blood of England, his

Eminence the Cardinal of Winchester; the other by Cauchon, Bishop of

Beauvais. In the rest of the chairs sat three bishops, the

Vice-Inquisitor, eight abbots, and the sixty-two friars and lawyers who

had sat as Joan's judges in her late trials.

Twenty steps in front of the platforms was another--a table-topped

pyramid of stone, built up in retreating courses, thus forming steps. Out

of this rose that grisly thing, the stake; about the stake bundles of

fagots and firewood were piled. On the ground at the base of the pyramid

stood three crimson figures, the executioner and his assistants. At their

feet lay what had been a goodly heap of brands, but was now a smokeless

nest of ruddy coals; a foot or two from this was a supplemental supply of

wood and fagots compacted into a pile shoulder-high and containing as

much as six packhorse loads. Think of that. We seem so delicately made,

so destructible, so insubstantial; yet it is easier to reduce a granite

statue to ashes than it is to do that with a man's body.

The sight of the stake sent physical pains tingling down the nerves of my

body; and yet, turn as I would, my eyes would keep coming back t it, such

fascination has the gruesome and the terrible for us.

The space occupied by the platforms and the stake was kept open by a wall

of English soldiery, standing elbow to elbow, erect and stalwart figures,

fine and sightly in their polished steel; while from behind them on every

hand stretched far away a level plain of human heads; and there was no

window and no housetop within our view, howsoever distant, but was black

with patches and masses of people.

But there was no noise, no stir; it was as if the world was dead. The

impressiveness of this silence and solemnity was deepened by a leaden

twilight, for the sky was hidden by a pall of low-hanging storm-clouds;

and above the remote horizon faint winkings of heat-lightning played, and

now and then one caught the dull mutterings and complainings of distant

thunder.

At last the stillness was broken. From beyond the square rose an

indistinct sound, but familiar--court, crisp phrases of command; next I

saw the plain of heads dividing, and the steady swing of a marching host

was glimpsed between. My heart leaped for a moment. Was it La Hire and

his hellions? No--that was not their gait. No, it was the prisoner and

her escort; it was Joan of Arc, under guard, that was coming; my spirits

sank as low as they had been before. Weak as she was they made her walk;

they would increase her weakness all they could. The distance was not

great--it was but a few hundred yards--but short as it was it was a heavy

tax upon one who had been lying chained in one spot for months, and whose

feet had lost their powers from inaction. Yes, and for a year Joan had

known only the cool damps of a dungeon, and now she was dragging herself

through this sultry summer heat, this airless and suffocating void. As

she entered the gate, drooping with exhaustion, there was that creature

Loyseleur at her side with his head bent to her ear. We knew afterward

that he had been with her again this morning in the prison wearying her

with his persuasions and enticing her with false promises, and that he

was now still at the same work at the gate, imploring her to yield

everything that would be required of her, and assuring her that if she

would do this all would be well with her: she would be rid of the dreaded

English and find safety in the powerful shelter and protection of the

Church. A miserable man, a stony-hearted man!

The moment Joan was seated on the platform she closed her eyes and

allowed her chin to fall; and so sat, with her hands nestling in her lap,

indifferent to everything, caring for nothing but rest. And she was so

white again--white as alabaster.

How the faces of that packed mass of humanity lighted up with interest,

and with what intensity all eyes gazed upon this fragile girl! And how

natural it was; for these people realized that at last they were looking

upon that person whom they had so long hungered to see; a person whose

name and fame filled all Europe, and made all other names and all other

renowns insignificant by comparisons; Joan of Arc, the wonder of the

time, and destined to be the wonder of all times!

And I could read as by print, in their marveling countenances, the words

that were drifting through their minds: "Can it be true, is it

believable, that it is this little creature, this girl, this child with

the good face, the sweet face, the beautiful face, the dear and bonny

face, that has carried fortresses by storm, charged at the head of

victorious armies, blown the might of England out of her path with a

breath, and fought a long campaign, solitary and alone, against the

massed brains and learning of France--and had won it if the fight had

been fair!"

Evidently Cauchon had grown afraid of Manchon because of his pretty

apparent leanings toward Joan, for another recorder was in the chief

place here, which left my master and me nothing to do but sit idle and

look on.

Well, I suppose that everything had been done which could be thought of

to tire Joan's body and mind, but it was a mistake; one more device had

been invented. This was to preach a long sermon to her in that oppressive

heat.

When the preacher began, she cast up one distressed and disappointed

look, then dropped her head again. This preacher was Guillaume Erard, an

oratorical celebrity. He got his text from the Twelve Lies. He emptied

upon Joan al the calumnies in detail that had been bottled up in that

mass of venom, and called her all the brutal names that the Twelve were

labeled with, working himself into a whirlwind of fury as he went on; but

his labors were wasted, she seemed lost in dreams, she made no sign, she

did not seem to hear. At last he launched this apostrophe:

"O France, how hast thou been abused! Thou hast always been the home of

Christianity; but now, Charles, who calls himself thy King and governor,

indorses, like the heretic and schismatic that he is, the words and deeds

of a worthless and infamous woman!" Joan raised her head, and her eyes

began to burn and flash. The preacher turned to her: "It is to you, Joan,

that I speak, and I tell you that your King is schismatic and a heretic!"

Ah, he might abuse her to his heart's content; she could endure that; but

to her dying moment she could never hear in patience a word against that

ingrate, that treacherous dog our King, whose proper place was here, at

this moment, sword in hand, routing these reptiles and saving this most

noble servant that ever King had in this world--and he would have been

there if he had not been what I have called him. Joan's loyal soul was

outraged, and she turned upon the preacher and flung out a few words with

a spirit which the crowd recognized as being in accordance with the Joan

of Arc traditions:

"By my faith, sir! I make bold to say and swear, on pain of death, that

he is the most noble Christian of all Christians, and the best lover of

the faith and the Church!"

There was an explosion of applause from the crowd--which angered the

preacher, for he had been aching long to hear an expression like this,

and now that it was come at last it had fallen to the wrong person: he

had done all the work; the other had carried off all the spoil. He

stamped his foot and shouted to the sheriff:

"Make her shut up!"

That made the crowd laugh.

A mob has small respect for a grown man who has to call on a sheriff to

protect him from a sick girl.

Joan had damaged the preacher's cause more with one sentence than he had

helped it with a hundred; so he was much put out, and had trouble to get

a good start again. But he needn't have bothered; thee was no occasion.

It was mainly an English-feeling mob. It had but obeyed a law of our

nature--an irresistible law--to enjoy and applaud a spirited and promptly

delivered retort, no matter who makes it. The mob was with the preacher;

it had been beguiled for a moment, but only that; it would soon return.

It was there to see this girl burnt; so that it got that

satisfaction--without too much delay--it would be content.

Presently the preacher formally summoned Joan to submit to the Church. He

made the demand with confidence, for he had gotten the idea from

Loyseleur and Beaupere that she was worn to the bone, exhausted, and

would not be able to put forth any more resistance; and, indeed, to look

at her it seemed that they must be right. Nevertheless, she made one more

effort to hold her ground, and said, wearily:

"As to that matter, I have answered my judges before. I have told them to

report all that I have said and done to our Holy Father the Pope--to

whom, and to God first, I appeal."

Again, out of her native wisdom, she had brought those words of

tremendous import, but was ignorant of their value. But they could have

availed her nothing in any case, now, with the stake there and these

thousands of enemies about her. Yet they made every churchman there

blench, and the preacher changed the subject with all haste. Well might

those criminals blench, for Joan's appeal of her case to the Pope

stripped Cauchon at once of jurisdiction over it, and annulled all that

he and his judges had already done in the matter and all that they should

do in it henceforth.

Joan went on presently to reiterate, after some further talk, that she

had acted by command of God in her deeds and utterances; then, when an

attempt was made to implicate the King, and friends of hers and his, she

stopped that. She said:

"I charge my deeds and words upon no one, neither upon my King nor any

other. If there is any fault in them, I am responsible and no other."