"'The Church pronounces you impious towards your parents; a transgressor

of the commandment of God--"Thou shalt honor thy father and mother;" a

blasphemer of the Lord; erring in your faith; and the maker of

presumptuous and temerarious promises in defiance of our mother the

Church.'"

This accusation is as unjust as the preceding ones. What heartrending

agonies did not Joan undergo when, beset by her voices that daily said

to her: "March to the deliverance of France!" she felt compelled to

resign herself to the idea of leaving her dearly beloved and revered

parents! How many times, overcoming the intoxication of her victories,

has she not felt and declared: "I would prefer to be sewing and spinning

near my dear mother!" And when, become the arbiter of the destiny of

France, she received a letter from her father who whelmed her with

blessings and pardoned her departure, did she not cry out, less

delighted at her triumphs than at the paternal clemency, "My father has

pardoned me!" And yet, despite the saintly absolution, these

ecclesiastics accuse her of trampling under foot the commandments of

God!

CANON MAURICE (reads)--"'Eighthly: Joan, you said that you jumped down

out of the tower of the Castle of Beaurevoir because you preferred death

to falling into the hands of the English; and that, despite the advice

of the archangel St. Michael and your saints, who ordered you not to

attempt to escape or kill yourself, you persevered in your project.

"'The Church pronounces you guilty of yielding to despair, of having

contemplated homicide upon yourself, and of having criminally

interpreted the law of human freedom of action.'"

Joan Darc smiles disdainfully at hearing these ecclesiastics condemn her

for having endeavored to escape her enemies who sold her for ten

thousand gold sous to the English.

CANON MAURICE (reads)--"'Ninthly: Joan, you said your saints promised

paradise to you if you preserved your virginity and devoted yourself to

God, and that you were as certain of paradise as if you were now in the

enjoyment of the bliss of the blessed. You said you did not consider

yourself in mortal sin because you ever heard the voice of your saints.

"'The Church pronounces you presumptuous and headstrong in assertions

that are mendacious and pernicious, and that exhale a pestilential

odor.'"

Joan raises to the vaulted roof of the apartment her face beaming with

faith and hope, and she hears her voices whisper to her: "Courage, holy

daughter, what need you care for the vain words of these men? God has

adjudged you worthy of His paradise."

CANON MAURICE (reads)--"'Tenthly: Joan, you said that the archangel St.

Michael and your saints, speaking to you in the language of Gaul,

informed you that they were enemies of the English and friends of your

King.

"'The Church pronounces you superstitious, a sorceress, a blasphemer of

the archangel St. Michael and of Saints Marguerite and Catherine, and a

contemner of love for your neighbor.

"'Eleventhly: Joan, you said that if the evil spirit had appeared under

the form of St. Michael you would have been able to discover and discern

the fact.

"'The Church pronounces you idolatrous, an invoker of devils and guilty

of illicit judgment.'"

Joan Darc believes she is dreaming when she hears the accusation of

sorcery and demoniacal invocations. A sorceress because she affirmed she

saw what she did see! A sorceress because she affirmed she heard what

she did hear! A sorceress and invoker of demons because those visions

appeared before her, visions that she neither invoked nor desired, and

that, frightening her at first, she prayed God to keep away from her!

CANON MAURICE (reads)--"'Twelfthly: Joan, you said that if the Church

would demand from you an admission contrary to the inspirations that you

pretend to have received from God, you would absolutely refuse

obedience, and that in all such matters you do recognize neither the

judgment of the Church nor of any man on earth. You said the answer

proceeded not from yourself but from God, and you persisted, although

frequently reminded of the article of faith, _Unam Ecclesiam

Catholicam_, and although it was proven to you that every Catholic must

submit his actions and words to the Church militant, represented by the

Pope and his ministers.

"'The Church pronounces you a schismatic, an enemy of its unity and

authority. It pronounces you, besides, stiff-necked in the errors of

your apostate faith.--Amen!'"

ALL THE JUDGES (in chorus, and crossing themselves)--"Amen!"

If in her loyalty, in the habitual meekness of her spirit Joan Darc

admitted some of the accusations against her, she would bow before the

judgment of these ecclesiastics. But after hearing the charges, the Maid

remains all the more convinced of their iniquity, and resolves more

strongly than ever to spurn such judges and to appeal from them to God.

The reading of the indictment being ended, Bishop Peter Cauchon

approaches the Maid's seat.

BISHOP CAUCHON--"And now, Joan, you know what terrible accusations weigh

upon you. The trial is hereby ended. It is now time to reflect well upon

what you have heard. If after having been so often admonished by me, as

well as by my other very dear brothers, the vicar of the Inquisition

and other learned prelates, you should, alack! in contumely of God, in

defiance of the faith and the law of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in

contempt of the safety and security of Catholic conscience, still

persist in your errors; should you persist in standing out as an object

of horrible scandal, of infectious and disgusting pestilence, it will

be, dear daughter, a great injury to your soul and your body. In the

name of your soul that is imperishable, but that may be damned, in the

name of your perishable body, I exhort you once more and for the last

time, to re-enter the bosom of our sacred mother the Roman Catholic and

Apostolic Church, and to submit yourself to her judgment. If not, and I

charitably warn you now a last time, your soul will be damned, damned to

all eternity and delivered to Satan, and your body will be destroyed by

fire--a thing that with my joined hands (he prostrates and crosses

himself, and clasps his hands) I fervently pray our Lord to preserve you

from."

JOAN DARC (makes a superhuman effort to rise and keep her feet; she

succeeds by steadying her chained and shaking limbs against her seat.

She then raises her right hand and cries in a firm voice and an accent

of profound and heroic conviction)--"I take heaven for my witness! I

shall be condemned, I shall see the fagots, the executioner ready to set

them on fire; and yet I shall unto death repeat: Yes, I have said the

truth. Yes, God has inspired me. Yes, from Him I expect everything,

nothing from anybody else. Yes, God is my sole judge, my sole master."

Exhausted by this last effort, Joan Darc falls back upon her seat in the

midst of profound silence. The ecclesiastics gather in a group with

Bishop Cauchon in the center. They consult in a low voice. The prelate

then approaches Joan Darc.

BISHOP CAUCHON (in a ringing voice and a gesture of malediction)--"The

sentence is pronounced: We, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by the grace of

God, pronounce you a blasphemer and sacrilegious woman, an invoker of

demons, an apostate and a heretic! We smite you with the sentence of the

major and minor excommunication; we pronounce you forever cut off from

the body of our holy mother the Church; and we leave you to the secular

arm which will to-morrow burn your body and cast your ashes to the wind!

Amen."

ALL THE ECCLESIASTICAL JUDGES (in chorus and making the sign of the

cross)--"Amen."

JOAN DARC (sublimely inspired)--"That is your judgment. I confidently

await the judgment of God!"

The jailers carry the prisoner back to her cell.

CHAPTER VI.

PHYSICAL COLLAPSE.

On the 24th of May, 1431, a great mass of people is crowding at about

eight in the morning and under a brilliant springtide sun towards the

cemetery of St. Audoin at Rouen. A low wall surrounds the place of

burial. Within, and near the entrance of the cemetery, there rises on

this morning a high scaffold with a wide platform on which a number of

seats decked with violet coverings are placed. English soldiers, casqued

and cuirassed, and lance in hand, form a cordon that keeps the crowd at

a distance. All seem to expect a great event.

The people are waiting to see Joan Darc, who is to mount the scaffold,

kneel down at the feet of Bishop Cauchon and with her arms crossed on

her breast abjure her past errors, deny her visions and renounce her

revelations, her faith, her glory and her patriotism; in short, to make

her humble, contrite and repentful submission to the sovereign judgment

of the Bishop and the ecclesiastics.

Only yesterday, despite the feebleness of her body, so proud and so

resolute in her answers to her accusers, Joan had cried: "Let the fagots

be there, let the executioner stand ready, and yet I shall repeat unto

death: Yes, God has inspired me. Yes, God is my sole judge, my sole

master!"

What inconceivable change has taken place in this soul, once so firm and

so full of conviction? Human weakness!

After the sentence pronounced upon her the day before by Bishop Cauchon,

the heroine was transported back to her cell. The feverish exaltation

that upheld her in the presence of her judges was followed by a reaction

of profound dejectment. Still she was resigned to suffer death. Under

these circumstances, and pretending to have obtained from the captain of

the tower permission to administer to her the last consolations, Canon

Loyseleur visited Joan. She received the priest with thankful joy.

Instructed by Joan on the last events, the canon broke down in tears,

moans and laments, and dwelled with affected horror upon the frightful

details of Joan's pending execution--shocking details: Joan was to be

taken in a shirt, not a woman's shirt as she had begged for on the

ground of its being longer, but in a man's shirt; nor was that all. The

English chiefs had decided that before delivering Joan to the flames,

she was to be stripped wholly naked, and fastened in that state to the

stake.

From the moment Joan learned that she was to be taken to the pyre in a

man's shirt, and was then to be bound by the executioner in full view

wholly naked to the stake, Joan's mind began to wander. She collected

whatever strength was left her, and although chained by the feet, hands

and waist, she stood upon her straw bed and flinging herself forward,

violently struck her head twice against the wall of the dungeon in a

frantic attempt to break her skull and die. But the impact of the poor

creature, weak, exhausted and fainting as she was, was not strong enough

to produce mortal, or even dangerous results. She fell down backward

upon her couch where the canon charitably held her down. He sobbed; he

implored his dear daughter in Christ not to yield to blind despair. True

enough, it was an abominable ordeal for so pure a soul, so chaste a

body, to be exposed at first half naked, and then wholly so, absolutely

naked, to the lascivious looks and obscene jeers of the soldiery and

mob! No doubt the ordeal would last an hour, perhaps longer; the English

would take a delight in prolonging the period of the Maid's nudity. But,

alack! how was the abomination to be avoided! There was only one way,

and no doubtful one, a sure way of escaping, not the shame only, but

even the pyre, aye, of escaping from the hands of the English. Thanks to

that means, Joan might regain her freedom, return to her family at

Domremy, and enjoy a restoring rest after so many trials. And then, when

she should have recovered her health, the martial maid could again don

her armor, call her valiant followers to arms, and marching at their

head, complete her work of driving the English out of France.

Joan Darc believed herself in a dream as she listened to the canon. His

age, his tears, his moaning, the constant interest that he had taken in

her since she was brought to her present dungeon--everything contributed

to remove from her spirit all thought of suspicion. In a semi-stupor she

questioned the canon on the means that he had in mind, from which he

promised such certain deliverance.

The tempter pursued his dark scheme with infernal skill. He began by

asking the heroine whether in her soul and conscience she did not look

upon her judges as monsters of iniquity? She readily assented. Could

she, consequently, feel herself bound by any promises that she might

make to the butchers, she a prisoner, under duress? She, sold for the

price of gold? No, concluded the canon, a promise made to these

butchers for the purpose of escaping abominable ignominy and the horrors

of burning, could never be binding upon an innocent victim. Such

engagements were null.

Joan asked what the promises would be. The canon answered that it was

merely a matter of renouncing _in appearance_ the errors that the

tribunal charged her with; in short, to submit _in appearance_ to the

judgment of the Church.

Joan's conscience revolted at the lie; to renounce the truth was to

renounce God.

"Yes, but with your lips, with your lips only, and not with your heart!"

pursued the tempter. "It is simply yielding to force; it is speaking for

a moment the language of the butchers, a fallacious and perfidious

language, true enough; but, thanks to such a legitimate fraud, to escape

from them, thus to preserve His elect to God, and to France her

liberator! It is simply a mouth-renunciation, while the soul will

continue to glorify all the acts inspired by heaven."

"But to promise to abjure under condition of being set free, is to bind

oneself to abjure," answered Joan, disconcerted by the canon's sophism.

"And what would that matter?" argued the tempter. "What would it matter

to make even a public abjuration, even kneeling at the Bishop's feet,

saying to him with the lips: 'My apparitions and my visions were

illusions; I have sinned in assuming man's habits; I have sinned in

waging war; I have sinned in refusing to submit to the judgment of the

Church. I now make my submission and regret my sins.' What would such

vain words matter? Did they proceed from the interior tribunal, the

sacred refuge of truth with the oppressed? Would perchance, the Lord,

who reads our secret thoughts, fail to read in your soul, at the very

moment when you would be pretending to abjure: 'My God, You before whom

nothing is hidden, I internally glorify these visions and apparitions,

the revered signs of Your omnipotence! I proclaim You my only judge, Oh,

my divine Master! And in Your infinite mercy You will pardon me these

few idle words, drawn from me by the desire of continuing to be the

instrument of Your supreme will, and by the desire of, with Your aid,

driving the stranger from the sacred soil of the fatherland.' Would God

fail to read these sentiments?"

Joan succumbed before the infernal tempter. Vainly did she hear her

voices warn her:

"To deny the truth is to deny God! You are about to lie in the face of

heaven and of men, more out of a chaste shame than out of fear to burn.

You are about to lie in the hope of regaining your freedom to finish

your divine mission. Such a fraud is cowardly and criminal."

But weakened by her sufferings, exhausted in the physical and mental

struggle that she had undergone, above all frightened out of her wits at

the thought of her virginal body being exposed naked by the executioner

to the eyes of men, and finally tempted by the prospect of freedom, of

again seeing her family and perchance achieving her work of liberation,

Joan shut her ears to the inflexible voice of her honor, of her faith,

of her conscience, and promised Canon Loyseleur to make a public

abjuration and submission to the Church, under the condition of a pledge

from the Bishop that she would be set at liberty immediately after her

abjuration. The canon charitably offered his services to the prisoner;

he expressed his certainty of successfully conducting the negotiation,

and of being able to overcome the resistance of the savage captain of

the tower and secure permission to call upon the Bishop without delay.

As may be believed, Loyseleur readily obtained the permission. Towards

midnight he returned with the institutor of the process and a physician.

The latter induced the captive to take a mixture that was to serve at

once as a tonic and a soporific. The mixture would enable her to sleep

restfully until morning, and would give her strength for the expiatory

ceremony. Joan Darc submitted to everything, saying to herself: "I shall

be free to-morrow, and shall have escaped an ignominy that is worse than

death."

The scaffold raised within the precincts of the cemetery of the Abbey of

St. Audoin is the immediate result of Canon Loyseleur's machinations in

Joan's cell. On the scaffold's spacious platform Joan is to appear,

surrounded by the ecclesiastics, and make a public abjuration.

The impatient crowd awaits the arrival of the cortege. More than half a

century under the yoke of English rule, most of the people of Rouen are

of the Burgundian party, and see in Joan Darc only an enemy.

Nevertheless, the astounding renown of the martial maid, her youth, her

beauty, her misfortune, her glory, awaken a profound sentiment of pity

for her among all, and the feeling is strongest among those who have

remained French at heart and are of the Armagnac party. The purpose of

Joan's public and solemn appearance is still unknown to the mass. Some

say that a public exposure is to precede the death penalty, to which she

is doubtlessly condemned; others, ignorant of the course of the trial,

believe she is to be publicly interrogated. William Poole, the Earl of

Warwick, and other English captains and prominent personages are

grouped in a reserved space inside the cemetery and near the scaffold.

Presently a distant and increasing noise announces the approach of the

train. The crowd presses and becomes more compact outside the cemetery.

The procession draws near, escorted by English archers. At its head

march the Cardinal of Winchester in the Roman purple, and the Bishop of

Beauvais with a gold mitre on his head, a gold crosier in his hand and

over his shoulders the chasuble of violet silk, resplendent in

embroidery. Behind them and in his monk's frock comes the inquisitor

John Lemaitre, together with Peter of Estivet, the official institutor

of the process, William Erard and two registrars, carrying parchments

and writing portfolios.

A few steps behind them, and sustained by two penitents whose grey

robes, covering them from head to foot, are pierced with two holes at

the elevation of their eyes, Joan advances slowly. Her weakness is

extreme, and although her eyes are wide open she does not seem to be

wholly awake; she still seems under the effect of the soporific and

tonic of the night before. She seems to look without seeing, and to hear

with indifference the hisses of the mob that, incited by the example of

the English soldiers, makes hostile demonstrations against the victim.

On Joan's head is a high mitre of black pasteboard which bears in large

letters the following words: "Heretic," "Idolater," "Apostate." A long

robe of coarse black wool envelops her from the neck down to her bare

feet. She halts for a moment before the scaffold, while the Cardinal,

the Bishop and other prelates take their seats upon it. At a signal from

one of the registrars, the two penitents, holding Joan under the arms,

help her to ascend the stairs of the scaffold. The sky is this day of an

admirable clearness; the sun shines brilliantly; the pleasant warmth of

its rays penetrates and gradually warms Joan Darc, who still shivers

from the dampness of the subterraneous dungeon in which she has so long

lain buried night and day. She inhales the bracing and pure air with

delight, and in full draughts. The atmosphere of her cell was so heavy,

so fetid! She seems to revive; her chilled and clogged blood courses

anew with the delight of life; she experiences an indescribable sense of

happiness at the contemplation of that azure sky bathed in light, and at

the sight of the green grass of the cemetery, studded here and there

with spring flowers. At a little distance stands a clump of trees, near

the abbey. The birds chirp in their foliage, the insects hum--everything

seems to sing and express delight on that sweet May morning. The sight

of nature that Joan has so long been deprived of--she who was from early

infancy accustomed to live on the meadows and in the woods--transports

her into a sort of ecstasy. She forgets her sufferings, her martyrdom,

her sentence and even the abjuration that she is about to pronounce. If

her thoughts at all fall upon these topics, the only effect is the

pleasurable reminder that she is soon to be free. Oh, free! to be free!

To see her village again! the oak forest, the Fountain of the Fairies,

the smiling and shady banks of the Meuse! To see again her family, her

friends, and, renouncing the bitter illusions of glory, escaping the

royal ingratitude, the hypocrisy, the hatred and the envy of men,

quietly spend her days in Domremy at her rustic labors as in the happy

days of yore! And that, all that at the price of a few words pronounced

before her butcher-judges, those monsters of iniquity! Oh, at this

moment of physical exaltation Joan would sign her abjuration with her

own blood. Her heart-beats, pulsating with hope, smother within her the

austere voices of her honor and her faith. In vain do these whisper to

her: "Be not faint-hearted! Bravely uphold the truth in the teeth of

those false priests, and you will be delivered from your trials, not for

a day, but for all eternity!" These voices are not now listened to; her

physical delight is too vast. Suddenly she is recalled to her condition

by the voice of Bishop Cauchon who severely says to her:

"Joan, down on your knees; bow your head!"

Joan Darc kneels down without removing her eyes from the beautiful blue

of the sky, from the radiant light of the sun from which she seeks to

draw the strength necessary to persevere in her resolution of abjuring.

A profound silence falls upon the crowd, the front ranks of which can

hear the words uttered on the scaffold, and Bishop Cauchon, crossing

himself, proceeds:

"My very dear brothers, the Lord said it to his apostle St. John, the

palm tree cannot of itself produce fruit if it does not live. Thus, my

very dear brothers, you must persevere in the true life of our holy

mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, which our Lord Jesus

Christ built with his right hand. But, alack! there are perverse souls,

abominable and idolatrous (he points at Joan Darc) filled with heretical

crimes, who rise with an audacity that is truly infernal against the

unity of our holy Church, to the great scandal and to the painful horror

of all good believers. (To Joan Darc with a menacing voice:) There you

are now upon a scaffold, in the face of heaven and of men. Is the light

to enter at last your haughty and diabolical soul? Will you at last

submit in all humbleness your words and acts to the Church militant, the

enormities of your acts! your monstrous words! according to the

infallible judgment of the priests of the Lord? Reflect and answer! If

not, the Church will abandon you to the secular arm and your body will

go up in the flames of the pyre."

These words produce a deep commotion among the crowd. The majority of

those present are hostile to Joan Darc. A small number feel sincere pity

for her. These various sentiments find expression in cries, imprecations

and charitable utterances:

"She has not yet been condemned, the witch! Death to the abominable

idolater!"

"A door of safety is being held open to her. Death to the heretic!"

"By St. George! Upon the word of an English archer, I shall set the

Bishop's house on fire if the strumpet is not brought to the pyre at

once!"

"Mercy will be extended to her! And yet with her sorceries she has

exterminated our invincible army!"

"Her partisans want to save her!"

"I hope they may succeed! Poor girl! She has suffered so much! Mercy for

her!"

"How pale and thin she is! She looks like a ghost! Take pity upon the

poor creature!"

"She fought for France. And after all, we are French!"

"Speak not so loud, my friend, the English soldiers may overhear you!"

"Jesus! My God! To burn her! Her who was so brave and so pious! It would

be an act of barbarism!"

"Is it her fault that God inspired her?"

"If saints appeared before her, and spoke to her, all the greater the

honor!"

"How can a bishop of the good God dare to pronounce her a sorceress!"

"Death! Death to the witch!"

"Death! Death to the she-devil!"

"To the pyre with the strumpet of the Armagnacs!"

At these ferocious cries and infamous insults Joan Darc's terror

redoubles. The ignominy that awaits her if she does not abjure rises

before her. To abjure means to escape mortal shame; to abjure means to

regain freedom! Joan Darc resigns herself. Still her loyalty and

conscience revolt at that supreme moment, and instead of completely

renouncing her errors, she mutters on her knees: "I have sincerely

stated all my actions to my judges; I believed I acted under the command

of God. I do not wish to accuse either my God or anybody. If I have

sinned I alone am guilty. I rely upon God. I implore His mercy."

"Subterfuges!" cried Bishop Cauchon. "Subterfuges! Yes, or no; do you

consider true what the priests, your only judges in matters of faith,

declare concerning your actions and words--words and acts that have been

pronounced fallacious, homicidal, sacrilegious, idolatrous, heretical

and diabolical? Answer! (Joan is silent) I call upon you a second time

to answer! (Joan is still silent) I ask you a third time to answer! You

are silent? You are an abominable criminal!"

Yes, the heroine remains silent, racked by a supreme internal struggle.

"Abjure!" whispered to her the instinct of self-preservation. "Do not

abjure! Do not lie! Courage! Courage!" cries her conscience; "maintain

the truth unto shame and death!" The wretched girl wrings her hands, and

remains silent, a prey to distracting agonies.

"Alack!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon, addressing the people. "My very dear

brothers! You see the stiff-neckedness of this unhappy woman! She spurns

her tender mother the Church, that extends her arms to her with love and

pardon! Alack! Alack! The evil spirit has taken a firm hold of her who

might now have been Joan. Her, whose body shall have to be delivered to

the burning flames of the pyre! Her, whose ashes will be cast to the

winds! Her, who, deprived of the holy Eucharist at the moment of death,

and loaded down with the decree of excommunication, is about to be cast

into the bottom of hell for all eternity! Alack! Alack! Joan, you willed

it so. We believed in your repentance, we consented not to deliver you

to the secular arm. But you persist in your heresy. Then listen to your

sentence!"

While the Bishop is recalling the formula of the sentence several

English soldiers brandish their lances and cry: "Let an end be made of

this!"

"Throw the witch quickly into the fire!"

"Death to the magician!"

At the same time other voices from the crowd cry:

"Poor, brave girl! Mercy for her!"

"Lord God! How can she deny her visions! Mercy! Mercy!"

"It would be a lie and cowardice on her part! Courage! Courage!"

Bishop Cauchon rises, terrible, and with his hands extended to heaven

makes ready to utter the final curse upon the accused. "Joan!" he cries,

"listen to your sentence. In the name of the Church, we, Peter, Bishop

of Beauvais by the mercy of God, declare you--"

Joan Darc interrupts the approaching imprecation with a shriek of

terror, clasps her hands, and collapses upon the scaffold, crying:

"Mercy! Mercy!"

"Do you submit yourself to the judgment of the Church?" again asks

Bishop Cauchon.

Livid and her teeth chattering with terror, Joan Darc answers: "Yes, I

submit myself!"

"Do you renounce your apparitions and visions as false, sacrilegious,

and diabolical?" the Bishop asks.

Wholly broken down, and in a gasping voice, Joan makes answer:

"Yes--yes--I renounce them--seeing the priests consider them wicked

things. I submit to their opinion--I shall submit to everything that the

Church may order--Mercy! Have pity upon me!" and cowering upon herself,

she hides her face in her hands amidst convulsive sobs.

"Oh, my very dear brothers!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon with an affectation

of charity. "What a beautiful day! What a holy day! What a glorious day!

that on which the Church in her maternal joy opens her arms to one of

her children, repentful after having long wandered from the fold! Joan,

your submission saves your body and your soul! Repeat after me the

formula of abjuration." The Bishop beckons to one of the registrars, who

brings to him a parchment containing the formula of abjuration.

Violent outcries break out from the crowd. The English soldiers and the

people of the Burgundian party feel irritated at the prospect of the

Maid's escaping death, and break out into imprecations against the

judges. They charge the Bishop and the Cardinal with treason and

threaten to burn down their houses. The English captains share the

indignation of their men. One of the former, the Earl of Warwick, steps

out of the group in which he stands, rushes up the stairs of the

scaffold, and approaching the prelate says to him angrily, in a low

voice: "Bishop, Bishop, is that what you promised us?" "Be patient!"

answers the prelate, also in a low voice; "I shall keep my promise; but

calm your men; they are quite capable of massacring us!"

Sufficiently acquainted with Peter Cauchon to know he can trust him, the

Earl of Warwick again descends from the platform, joins his companions

in arms, and communicates the Bishop's answer to them. The latter hasten

to distribute themselves among the ranks of the soldiers, whose anger

they appease with assurances that the witch will be burned despite her

abjuration. But while one part of the mob is enraged at the Maid's

abjuration and the Bishop's pardon, another, consisting of the people

who pity Joan, is thrown into consternation. This feeling soon makes way

for indignation. She denies her visions; then they were false pretences;

she lied when she claimed to be sent by God. And if her visions were

true, she is now disgracing herself by a shameful act of cowardice.

Coward or liar--such is the judgment they now pass upon Joan Darc. The

infernal ecclesiastical plot is skilfully hatched; through it the

sympathy once felt for the heroine is extinguished in the hearts of her

partisans themselves. On her knees upon the scaffold, cowering down, and

her face covered by her hands, Joan Darc seems a stranger to what passes

around her. Overcome by so many conflicting emotions, her mind again

begins to wander, she seems to have but one fixed idea--to escape the

disgrace of the stake.

Silence being finally restored, Peter Cauchon rises with the parchment

in his hands and says: "Joan, you shall now repeat with your heart and

your lips, the following formula of abjuration, in the measure that I

pronounce it. Listen!" and he proceeds to read in a voice that is heard

by the remotest ranks of the pressing crowd: "'Any person who has erred

in the Catholic faith, and who thereafter by the grace of God has

returned to the light of truth and to the bosom of our holy mother the

Church, must be careful not to allow himself to be provoked by the evil

spirit into a relapse. For this reason, I, Joan, commonly named the

Maid, a miserable sinner, recognizing that I was fettered by the chains

of error, and wishing to return to the bosom of our holy mother the

Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, I, Joan, to the end of proving that

I have returned to my tender mother, not in false appearance, but with

my heart, do hereby confess, first, that I gravely sinned by falsely

causing others to believe that I had apparitions and revelations of God

in the forms of St. Marguerite and St. Catherine and of St. Michael the

archangel.'" Turning to Joan, the Bishop asks: "Do you confess having

wickedly sinned in that, and of having been impious and sacrilegious?"

"I confess it!" comes from Joan Darc in a broken voice.

An outburst of cries from the indignant mob greets the confession of the

penitent. Those now most furious are the ones who were before moved with

tender pity for her.

"So, then, you lied!"

"You imposed upon the poor people, miserable hypocrite!"

"And I, who felt pity for her!"

"The Church is too indulgent!"

"Think of accepting the penitence of so infamous a cheat!"

"Upon my word, comrades, she is quite capable of being possessed of the

devil as the English claimed! The strumpet and liar!"

"And yet her victories were none the less brilliant for all that!"

"Aye! through witchcraft! Are you going to show pity for the liar?"

"Fear of the fagot makes one admit many a thing!"

"Then she is a coward! She has not the courage to uphold the truth in

the face of death! What faint-heartedness!"

Silence is restored only by degrees. Joan Darc hears the frightful

accusations hurled at her. To return to her first declarations would be

an admission of fear. Her mind wanders again.

Continuing to read from the formula of abjuration, Bishop Cauchon says:

"'Secondly, I, Joan, confess to have grievously sinned by seducing

people with superstitious divinations, by blaspheming the angels and the

saints, and by despising the divine law of Holy Writ and the canonical

laws.'" Addressing Joan the Bishop asks: "Do you confess it?'

"I confess it!" murmurs Joan.

Bishop Cauchon proceeds to read: "'Thirdly, I, Joan confess having

grievously sinned by wearing a dissolute garb, deformed and dishonest,

in violation of decency and nature; and by wearing my hair cut round,

after the fashion of men, and contrary to modesty'--Do you confess that

sin?"

"I confess it!"

"'Fourthly, I, Joan, confess having grievously sinned by boastfully

carrying armor of war, and by cruelly desiring the shedding of human

blood.'--Do you confess it?"

Joan Darc wrings her hands and exclaims: "My God! Can I affirm such

things?"

"What! You hesitate!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon, and he adds, addressing

her in a low voice: "Be careful, the fagots await you!"

"I confess it, Father," stammers Joan.

"Joan, do you confess having cruelly desired the effusion of human

blood?" asks Bishop Cauchon in a thundering voice.

"I confess it!"

Loud cries of horror go up from the mob, while the English soldiers

brandish their weapons at Joan. Some men pick up stones to stone the

heroine to death. The imprecations against her redouble threateningly.

"The harpy waged war out of pure cruelty!"

"She merely wished to soak herself in blood!"

"And the Church pardons her!"

"At one time I felt great pity for the wretch. Now I say with the

English, Death to the tigress who lived on blood!"

"You fools! Do you believe these priests? Do you think Joan went after

battle to drink the blood of the slain?"

"You defend her?"

"Yes! Oh, why am I alone?"

"You are a traitor!"

"He is an Armagnac!"

"Death to the Armagnac!"

The mob beats Joan's defender to death. As to herself, her condition is

now such that she no longer is aware of aught she hears or says. She has

practically lost consciousness. She barely has enough strength to

respond mechanically, "I confess it," each time she hears Bishop Cauchon

ask her, "Do you confess it?" In the midst, however, of her weakness and

the wandering of her mind, one thought she is fully conscious of, the

thought that her agony cannot last long; within a short time she would

be dead or free! Poor martyr!

Bishop Cauchon continues to read: "'Fifthly, I, Joan, confess that I

grievously sinned in claiming that all my acts and all my words were

inspired to me by God, His saints and His angels, while in truth I

despised God and His sacraments and I constantly invoked evil

spirits.'--Do you confess it?"

"I confess it!"

"She confesses that she is a witch!" cries a voice from the mob.

"By St. George, she has exterminated thousands of my countrymen by her

sorceries! And shall she escape the fagots!"

"She will be burned later! Our captains have promised us!"

"They deceive us! We shall burn her ourselves, now!"

Bishop Cauchon reads: "'Sixthly, I, Joan, confess that I grievously

sinned by being a schismatic.'--Do you confess it?"

"I confess it!"

Bishop Cauchon continues reading: "'All of which crimes and errors, I,

Joan, having returned to the truth, by the grace of our Lord, and also

by the grace of our holy and infallible doctrine, my good and reverend

Fathers, I now renounce and abjure.'--Do you renounce, do you abjure

these crimes and errors?"

"I renounce! I abjure!"

Bishop Cauchon reads on: "'In the faith and the belief of all of which,

I declare that I shall submit to the punishment that the Church may

inflict upon me, and I promise and swear to St. Peter, the prince of the

apostles, and to our Holy Father the Pope of Rome, his vicar, and to his

successors, and to you, my seigneurs, and to you, my reverend father in

God, Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais, and to you religious person,

Brother John Lemaitre, vicar of the Inquisition of the faith, I, Joan,

swear to you, to all of you my judges, never again to relapse into the

criminal errors that it has pleased the Lord to deliver me from! I swear

ever to remain in the union of our holy mother the Church, and in

obedience to our Holy Father the Pope!'--Do you swear?"

"I swear--and I am dying!"

Bishop Cauchon beckons to one of the registrars. The latter takes a pen

out of his portfolio, dips it in ink, hands it to the prelate, and holds

up his square cap for a desk. The prelate places the parchment on the

cap, and continues to read from it in a loud voice:

"'I, Joan, affirm and confirm all that is said above; I swear to it and

affirm it in the name of the living and all-powerful God and of the

sacred gospels, in proof whereof, and not knowing how to write, I have

signed this document with my mark,'" saying which he presents the pen to

the kneeling Joan and pointing to the parchment on the registrar's cap,

adds: "Now place your cross here, below, seeing you do not know how to

write."

In an almost expiring condition Joan Darc endeavors to trace a cross at

the bottom of the parchment. Her strength fails her. The registrar

kneels down beside the Maid, and guiding her inert and icy hand, aids

her to make her mark at the bottom of the document. This being done, he

calls the two penitents dressed in long grey gowns who have remained at

the foot of the scaffold, and delivers to them the almost insensible

Joan Darc. They place themselves on either side of her and take her

under the arms. Her head drops upon her shoulder; from between her

half-closed eyelids her eyes appear fixed and glassy. The only sign that

life has not yet fled is a slight tremor that from time to time runs

over her frame.

Stepping forward, Bishop Cauchon addresses the crowd in a tremendous

voice: "All pastors charged with the duty of lovingly guarding the flock

of Christ must endeavor to keep far from their dear flock all causes of

pestilence, infection and corruption, and must seek to lead back the

sheep that has wandered off among the brambles. Wherefore, we, Peter,

Bishop of Beauvais by the grace of God, assisted by John Lemaitre,

Inquisitor of the faith, and other learned and reverend priests, all

competent judges, having heard and considered your assertions and your

admissions, do now declare to you, Joan the Maid: We pronounce you

guilty of having falsely maintained that you have had divine visions and

revelations; guilty of having seduced weak people and having

stiff-neckedly held to your opinions; guilty of having despised the

sacraments and the holy canons; guilty of having favored sedition

against our sovereign and serene master the King of England and France;

guilty of having cruelly shed human blood; guilty of having apostatized,

schismatized, blasphemed, idolatrized and invoked the evil spirit. But

seeing that by the grace of the All-Powerful you have at last returned

to the pale of our holy and sweet mother the Church, and that, filled

with sincere contrition and genuine faith, you have publicly and in a

loud voice made abjuration of your criminal and heretical errors, we now

suspend the punishment of excommunication and its consequences, upon the

express condition that you sincerely return to our holy and merciful

Church. And charitably wishing to aid you in accomplishing your

salvation, we condemn you, Joan the Maid, to perpetual imprisonment

where your food shall be the bread of pain, your drink the water of

agony, to the end that, weeping throughout the rest of your life over

your monstrous sins, you may never again incur them. This is your final

and definite condemnation. You now see how the Church of our Lord shows

herself a tender mother towards you. Do then forevermore abandon and

deplore your culpable error! Renounce your male attire forever, a shame

to your sex! And should you relapse into that or any other mortal and

idolatrous sin, then will the Church with profound and maternal pain be

forced to cut you off forever from her body, she will then deliver you

to the secular arm, and you will be cast into the flames like a

gangrened member, seized with incurable rottenness. Glory to God on

high, Amen."

The mob, especially the English soldiers, receive the "merciful"

sentence with a threatening clamor. The people make a move to force the

gate of the cemetery, which is guarded by a platoon of archers. The

latter, being no less exasperated, seem ready to join the discontented

and attack the platform. The Earl of Warwick quickly ascends the

scaffold and again angrily addresses the Bishop: "Bishop! Has not this

comedy lasted long enough? We can no longer answer for our soldiers in

their present state of exasperation if, despite her abjuration, the

witch is not burned!"

Bishop Cauchon suppresses with difficulty a gesture of impatience. He

whispers into the English captain's ear. The latter, seeming to be

convinced by what he hears, answers with a gesture of approval. The

prelate adds: "Rest assured of what I promise you. At present see to it

that the gate of the cemetery is well guarded, and that the mob is not

allowed to break in. We shall make our exit by the garden of the abbey,

and the Maid will be taken the same way. She would otherwise be

massacred by the good people. And that must not be. She has only

fainted. She will be seen to in her prison."

The Earl of Warwick again descends from the platform. The Bishop issues

his orders to the penitents who are supporting the wholly unconscious

Joan in their arms. They raise her--one under the arms, the other by the

feet, descend the stairs of the platform, and, bearing their burden,

walk rapidly across the cemetery to the garden of the abbey, while the

English soldiers, obedient to the orders of their captains, who promise

to them the speedy execution of Joan, close their ranks before the gate

of the cemetery and keep back the mob, that shouts for the death of the

witch.

CHAPTER VII.

REMORSE.

After her formal abjuration Joan Darc is taken in an almost dying

condition, not to her cell but to a room in the Castle of Rouen. By

orders of the Bishop, two old women are appointed to nurse her. She is

laid in a soft bed; her jaws, locked in convulsions, are forced open,

and a calming beverage poured down her throat. Every day and night the

physician visits her. On the second day after the abjuration, the

patient is out of danger. When Joan Darc recovers consciousness, she

finds herself in a spacious and neatly furnished room. The warm rays of

the sun play upon the glass of the barred casement. The two old women,

who have her in charge, are seated at the head of the patient's bed

seeming to contemplate her with tender interest. Joan Darc first thinks

that she dreams, but her next belief is that, agreeable to the promise

made to her by the institutor in the name of the Bishop, she has

secretly been set free. She believes that some charitable people have

obtained from the Bishop permission to transport her to their own house.

The first impression felt by Joan at these surmises is one of joy at

being free, and no remorse assails her at having denied the truth. The

bliss of having escaped the dreaded shame of exposure, the hope of soon

recovering her health, the prospect of returning to Domremy and seeing

her parents--all these pleasurable sentiments smother the reproaches of

her voices. She asks the two old women where she is. They smile in

answer, and mysteriously place their fingers on their lips. From these

tokens Joan conjectures that they are not free to answer, but that she

is in a safe and hospitable asylum. Preserving on this head the silence

that seems to be recommended to her, Joan gives herself over without

reserve to the joy of living, of looking through the window panels at

the blue sky, at feeling her limbs, so long sore and even wounded by the

weight of her chains, finally free from their cruel grip; above all she

congratulates herself on being delivered from the presence of her

jailers, whose revolting utterances and licentious looks have been a

cause of unremitting torture to her. She accepts nourishment and even

some generous wine mixed with water. Her strength returns. On the third

day she is able to rise. Her nurses offer her a long woman's dress and a

hat. No longer assailed by the chaste apprehension that her jailers

inspired her with in her cell, Joan resumes without hesitation the garb

of her sex. The door of the room that she occupies opens upon a terrace

on which her nurses induce her to promenade. A board fence high enough

to shut off the view surrounds the terrace.

Joan remains a long time upon the terrace, inhaling the spring air with

delight. When night approaches, feeling herself slightly fatigued by her

walk, she undresses, lies down upon her bed, and sleeps profoundly.

Subject to human weakness, and transported by the joy of being free

after such a long, painful and rigid confinement, the poor martyr is not

assailed by remorse until towards evening. Vague sentiments, the

forerunners of the approaching awakening of her conscience having cast

a shadow over her spirit, she seeks in sleep both further rest and

oblivion. Her expectations prove false.

St. Marguerite and St. Catherine appear in the heroine's dream; they do

not now smile and look down tenderly upon her. They are sad and

threatening, and reproach her for having denied the truth out of fear

and shame. Profoundly impressed by her dream, Joan wakes up, her face

covered with tears, when, lo, she sees the two saints with their gold

crowns on their heads and robed in white and blue, luminously, almost

transparently floating in the darkness of the room, and calling her by

her name.

With beating heart and clasped hands, Joan kneels down on her bed, sobs,

and implores their forgiveness. Without answering her, the two saints

point to heaven with a significant gesture. The apparition then

gradually fades away, and darkness again reigns supreme.

Thus rudely awakened to a sense of her actual condition, the heroine

forthwith feels the promptings of her own conscience, that has lain

torpid since the abjuration. She traces back the solemnity in all its

horrid details; she recalls the maledictions with which she was whelmed

by those who just before commiserated her. The terrible, yet legitimate

accusation pounds upon her ears:

"If Joan's visions are inventions and a fraud, she has deceived simple

people--she has lied--she only deserves contempt."

"If her visions were genuine, if God inspired her, she covers herself

with shame by abjuring out of fear of death!"

"_Coward_ or _liar_" her inexorable voices repeat to her; "coward, or

liar!--such is the name that you will leave behind you!"

Indescribable are the tortures that the poor creature undergoes on that

night of desperate remorse. The full lucidity of her mind, of her

energy, of her character, have returned to her, but only to curse her.

Her keen judgment points out to her the fatal consequences of her

abjuration; the soldiers and the peoples who rose at her voice against

the foreigner will soon learn of the perjury committed by her whom they

believed inspired! Mistrust of themselves, dejectment, even defeat may

follow the victorious exaltation of the soldiers and the people. On the

other hand, the memory of the martial maid, surviving her martyrdom,

would have added fuel to their courage, it would have aroused an

avenging hatred for the English, and the great work of the complete

emancipation of Gaul would have been achieved in the name of the victim,

and in execration of her butchers.

Finally, could Joan continue the war even after she regained her

freedom? What confidence could she inspire in the masses, she who had

been convicted of falsehood or cowardice?

The plot of the ecclesiastics was planned with diabolical craft. They

foresaw and calculated the consequences of the heroine's apostasy; they

realized that, taken to the pyre after she had confessed the divinity of

her mission, Joan would have become a saint; if, however, she renounced

her past actions, she was dishonored.

"Idle remorse!" thinks Joan. "How retract a public abjuration.

Impossible! Who could believe in the sincerity of a creature who had

once before renounced her faith and her honor!"

These mind and heartrending thoughts are tearing Joan Darc to pieces

when morning dawns and a rap is heard at the door of her chamber. The

old women rise and go to inquire who is there. It is their reverend

father in God, Canon Loyseleur. He wishes to speak to Joan without

delay. She hastily puts on her woman's clothes and prepares to receive

the priest, towards whom she now experiences a secret aversion, seeing

that she accuses him in her heart for having led her to abjure by

superexciting her dread of the shame and fear of the fagots. She

reflects, however, that after all, the priest might have actually

believed in the wisdom of his advice, and that she alone is responsible

for the cowardly apostasy. Joan receives the canon with her habitual

sweetness of manners. She learns from him that she is still a prisoner

in the Castle of Rouen, but that the Bishop will set her free. The

prelate, adds the canon, has no interest in retaining her a prisoner,

and is to allow her to escape at night in a day or two. Loyseleur

pretends that, thanks to his own personal intercession with the captain

of the tower, she has been transferred to that room; but the captain

demands that, the prisoner being now almost well again, she be returned

to her cell. His orders are to be carried out that very morning.

Joan Darc believes the priest's words and easily reconciles herself to

the idea of returning to her cell, but she asks as a supreme favor that

male attire be provided to her for the sake of protection against her

jailers. Canon Loyseleur promises to carry her wishes to the captain of

the tower. Suddenly one of the old women rushes into the room saying

that the jailer and an escort of soldiers are coming to claim the

prisoner. The canon assures Joan she is soon to be set free, and leaves

the room at the moment that John enters, carrying manacles which he

fastens on the wrists of the heroine, and then conducts her back to her

cell. Upon entering, Joan notices that the male clothes which she left

there have disappeared. She expects to see herself chained by the waist

and feet as she was before; but, freeing her even of the manacles, John

informs her that she is no longer to be chained, saying which he leaves,

casting a strange look upon her. Hardly concerned at this leniency, Joan

sits down upon her straw couch and remains motionless, occupied with her

own thoughts.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE RELAPSE.

It has long been night. The little iron lamp lights the dungeon of Joan

Darc, who lies upon her straw couch broken with remorse at the

continuous reproaches of her voices, and racking her brain for the means

to expiate her weakness. The captive bitterly regrets the disappearance

of her masculine clothes. Agitated by vague presentiments, and

apprehensive of dangers on which she hardly dares dwell, she has wrapped

herself as closely as she can in her clothes, and fearing to yield to

the sleepiness that is gaining upon her, she rises from her straw bed

and sits down upon the floor with her back leaning against the wall. But

pressed down by sleep, her eyelids close despite herself, by degrees her

head droops forward, and finally drops upon her knees which she holds

within her arms. She falls asleep.

A few minutes later the pale face of Canon Loyseleur appears at the

wicket. He notices that Joan is asleep, and withdraws.

Shortly afterwards the heavy door of the dungeon turns noiselessly upon

its hinges. It opens and recloses so silently that Joan Darc's slumber,

is not interrupted either by the slight noise of the door or the steps

of two men who creep into the cavernous precinct. The two men are Talbot

and Berwick, the English captains, who are appointed by Bishop Cauchon

as the additional keepers of Joan Darc. Both are men in the prime of

life. They wear rich slashed jackets after the fashion of the time. The

two noble officers have sought in the stimulus of wine the requisite

courage to commit the unheard-of atrocity, the nameless crime that they

are bent upon. Their cheeks are inflamed, their eyes glisten, a lewd

smile contracts their vinous lips. At the sight of Joan asleep they stop

a moment and take council. Presently the two rush upon their victim.

Awakened with a start, Joan Darc leaps up and struggles to free herself

from the grasp of her assailants. Berwick seizes her by the waist, while

Talbot, sliding behind, seizes her arms and approaches his mouth to the

lips of Joan, who turns her head away and utters a piercing shriek. The

two noblemen drag her to the straw couch. The heroine draws superhuman

strength from her despair. A violent struggle ensues, horrible,

nameless. The tipsy Talbot and Berwick, exasperated at the heroine's

resistance, give a loose to the fury of unsatisfied lechery. They smite

Joan Darc with their fists. Her face bleeds. Yet she resists, and calls

for help.

At last the door opens and Canon Loyseleur appears at the entrance. He

feigns indignation. He brings with him a little trunk containing Joan's

male clothes, and addressing the captain of the tower who enters with

him, says: "You see it with your own eyes! An infamous attempt is

contemplated upon the unfortunate woman!" Perhaps not wholly dead to

conscience, Berwick and Talbot allow Joan Darc to escape from their

grasp, and leave the cell, followed by the captain. Distracted, her face

black and blue and covered with blood, Joan Darc falls almost senseless

upon her couch, near which the canon has deposited her man's attire.

Before he has time to speak with the victim, he is called away by the

jailer, who, shaking his fist at him, says roughly:

"Get out of here, you tonsured dotard, canon of Satan! The devil take

the marplot!"

"Poor child!" cries the priest, walking out, "I brought you your

clothes. Put them on despite the oath you took. You may perhaps be

sentenced as a relapsed heretic. But death is preferable to outrage!"

The door of the cell closes behind the canon. Silence and darkness

resume their empire in Joan's dungeon. The plot to cause Joan's

condemnation, induce her abjuration and then provoke her relapse so as

to justify her being publicly burned to death is being carried out to

the letter.

CHAPTER IX.

THE WORM TURNS.

It is eight o'clock of the following morning. Joan Darc is again clad in

her male attire. She is again chained. Her handsome face is bruised from

the blows that she received in the nocturnal struggle. One thought only

absorbs her mind--can she manage to confess aloud the truth of what she

has denied? The heroine's expectations are met by the event. Instructed

by his accomplice of the happenings of the day before, the Bishop has

commissioned several judges to visit Joan in her cell. They are seven.

Here are their names:

Nicolas of Venderesse, William Haiton, Thomas of Courcelles, Isambard of

La Pierre, James Camus, Nicolas Bertin, Julien Floquet.

Considering her crime flagrant, Joan Darc feels a bitter joy at the

sight of the priests. Her head erect, calm, resolute, she seems to

challenge their questions. Out of modesty and dignity, however, and

unwilling to run the risk of blushing before these men, she decides to

be silent upon the attempt of the previous night. The judges range

themselves around the couch of the enchained captive.

THOMAS OF COURCELLES (affecting astonishment)--"What, Joan, again in

man's attire? And despite your oath to renounce such idolatrous garb

forever?"

JOAN DARC (tersely)--"I have resumed these clothes because I was forced

to."

NICOLAS OF VENDERESSE--"You have violated your oath."

JOAN DARC (indignant)--"It is you who have violated yours! Have the

promises made to me been kept? Have I been allowed to attend mass? Have

I been restored to freedom after my abjuration? You are knaves and

hypocrites!"

JAMES CAMUS--"We had to conform to the ecclesiastical sentence which

condemns you to perpetual imprisonment."

JOAN DARC--"I prefer to die rather than remain in this prison. (She

shivers with horror at the thought of the previous night's attempt upon

her.) Had I been allowed to attend mass, had I been left in a decent

place, free from my chains, and kept by women, I would have continued to

clothe myself in the garb of my sex. If there is any fault, it lies with

you."

ISAMBARD OF LA PIERRE--"Have you heard your voices since your

condemnation?"

JOAN DARC (with bitterness)--"Yes; I have heard them."

The priests look at one another and exchange meaning looks.

WILLIAM HAITON--"What did your voices say to you? We want to know."

JOAN DARC (with a firm voice)--"They told me I committed an act of

cowardice by denying the truth."

JAMES CAMUS--"And before the abjuration, what did your voices say?"

JOAN DARC (intrepidly looking at her judges)--"My voices said to me it

would be criminal to deny the divine inspiration that ever guided me.

(Commotion among the judges.) Upon the scaffold my voices said to me:

'Answer that preacher boldly--he is a false priest!' Woe is me, I did

not obey my voices!"

The judges remain silent for a moment, and exchange expressive looks.

THOMAS OF COURCELLES--"These words are as rash as they are criminal.

After having abjured, you relapse into your damnable errors!"

JOAN DARC (in a ringing voice)--"The error lies in lying--by abjuring I

lied! What is damnable is to damn one's soul, and I damned it by not

maintaining that I obeyed the will of heaven! My voices have reproached

me for having abjured."

JAMES CAMUS--"Thus, after resuming male attire, a capital crime, an

unpardonable crime which makes you a relapsed one, _revolvistis ad

vestrum vomitum_--you have returned to your vomit, you dare maintain

that those alleged voices--"

JOAN DARC--"The voices of my saints--come from God."

THOMAS OF COURCELLES--"On the scaffold you confessed."

JOAN DARC--"On the scaffold I was a coward! I lied! I yielded to the

feeling of terror!"

JAMES CAMUS--"At this hour, thinking you no longer need to fear death,

you come back to your former declarations."

JOAN DARC--"At this hour I maintain that only fear forced me to abjure,

to confess the contrary of the truth. I prefer to die, rather than

remain in this prison. I have spoken. You shall have not another word

from me."

JAMES CAMUS--"Be it so!"

The priests file out slowly and silently. Joan Darc remains alone, on

her knees upon the straw. She raises her eyes to the vault of her prison

with a radiant, inspired face, and with her hands joined, she thanks her

saints for the courage they have given her to expiate and annul her

apostasy by resolutely marching to death.

CHAPTER X.

TO THE FLAMES!

The scene changes. After the last interrogatory of Joan the priests

proceed to Bishop Cauchon in order to inform him of the issue of their

visit to the prisoner--a result that the prelate expects, so much so

that he has convoked a sufficient number of judges to meet in the chapel

of the Archbishop's palace at Rouen in order to proceed with the final

sentence of the relapsed sinner. All the summoned prelates are assembled

and in their seats in the chapel. Bishop Cauchon, seated in the center

of the choir, presides, and orders silence with a gesture.

BISHOP CAUCHON--"My very dear brothers, Joan has fallen back into her

damnable errors, and in contempt of her solemn abjuration, pronounced in

the face of God and His Holy Writ, not only has she resumed her male

attire, but she again stubbornly maintains that all that she has done

and said was said and done by divine inspiration! I now call for your

views, in the order of precedence, upon the fate of the said Joan who is

now charged with having relapsed, reserving to myself the right of

convoking you again, should I deem it necessary."

ARCHDEACON NICOLAS OF VENDERESSE--"The said Joan should be given over to

the secular arm, to be burned alive as a relapsed sinner."

ABBOT AGIDIE--"Joan is a relapsed heretic, no doubt about it.

Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that a second abjuration should be

proposed to her, under pain of being delivered to the secular arm."

CANON JOHN PINCHON--"Joan has relapsed; I shall adhere to whatever plan

of punishment my very dear brothers may decide upon."

CANON WILLIAM ERARD--"I pronounce the said Joan a relapsed sinner and

deserving of the pyre."

CHAPLAIN ROBERT GILBERT--"Joan should be burned as a relapsed sinner and

heretic."

ABBOT OF ST. AUDOIN--"The woman is a relapsed sinner. Let her abjure a

second time or be condemned."

ARCHDEACON JOHN OF CASTILLONE--"Let the relapsed sinner be delivered to

the secular arm."

CANON ERMANGARD--"I demand the exemplary death of Joan."

DEACON BOUCHER--"Joan should be sentenced as a relapsed one."

PRIOR OF LONGUEVILLE--"That is my opinion. She should be burned alive."

FATHER GIFFARD--"I think the relapsed sinner should be sentenced without

delay."

FATHER HAITON--"I pronounce the said Joan a relapsed sinner. I am for

her speedy punishment, provided, however, she refuses to abjure a second

time."

CANON MARGUERIE--"Joan is a relapsed sinner. Let her be delivered up to

secular justice."

CANON JOHN OF L'EPEE--"I am of my brother's opinion. She should be

burned to death."

CANON GARIN--"I think so, too."

CANON GASTINEL--"Let us give up the relapsed sinner to the pyre."

CANON PASCAL--"That is my opinion. Let her be burned to death."

FATHER HOUDENC--"The ridiculous explanations of the woman are to me an

ample proof that she has always been an idolatress and a heretic.

Besides that, she is a relapsed sinner. I demand that she be delivered

to the secular arm without delay."

MASTER JOHN OF NIBAT--"The said Joan is impenitent and a relapsed

sinner. Let her undergo her punishment."

FATHER FABRE--"A heretic by habit, hardened in her errors, a rebel to

the Church, the body of the said Joan should be delivered to the flames,

and her ashes cast to the winds."

ABBOT OF MONTEMART--"I hold as my brother. Only I am of the opinion that

she should be given a second chance to abjure."

FATHER GUELON--"That is my opinion."

CANON COUPEQUESNE--"Mine also."

CANON GUILLAUME--"Let the said Joan be offered a second chance to

retract. If she refuses, then death."

CANON MAURICE--"I favor such a second summons, although I do not expect

good results from it."

DOCTOR WILLIAM OF BANDIBOSC--"I side with my very dear brother."

DEACON NICOLAS CAVAL--"The relapsed sinner should be treated without

pity, according to her deserts. She should be burned to death."

CANON LOYSELEUR--"The said Joan should be delivered to the temporal

flames."

THOMAS OF COURCELLES--"The woman is a heretic and relapsed sinner. She

may be summoned a second time, and told that if she persists in her

errors, she has nothing to expect in this world."

FATHER JOHN LEDOUX--"Although such a second attempt seems to me idle, it

might be tried so as to demonstrate the inexhaustible kindness of our

mother the Church."

MASTER JOHN TIPHAINE--"I favor this second, though idle, attempt."

DEACON COLOMBELLE--"I am of the same opinion."

ISAMBARD OF LA PIERRE--"Secular justice will take its course if the said

Joan refuses to abjure a second time."

From these opinions it transpires that some of the judges demand

immediate death, while others, and these are a small majority, favor a

second abjuration, although the opinion is general that the attempt is

vain. The judges have learned from their accomplices that the heroine is

now determined to seek in death the expiation of the confessions which

only fear drew from her. More straightforward and frank in his projects,

moreover, convinced of the success of his plan, the Bishop sums up the

deliberation and absolutely opposes the idea of attempting a second

abjuration. Do not most of those who favor the measure consider it idle?

Why, then, try it? And even if it were certain that the relapsed sinner

would abjure again, the performance would have a deplorable effect. Did

not the soldiers and the people, exasperated at the clemency of the

Church, cry "Treason!" and seem ready to riot at the time of the first

abjuration? Is it wise to incur and provoke a terrible turmoil in the

town? Has not the Church given evidence of her maternal charity by

admitting Joan to penitence, despite her perverse heresy? How was this

act of benevolence rewarded by her? It was rewarded with renewed and

redoubled boastfulness, audacity and impiety! Bishop Cauchon closes,

conjuring his very dear brothers in the name of the dignity of the

Church, in the name of the peace of the town, in the name of their

conscience, to declare without superfluous verbiage that the said Joan

is a relapsed sinner, and, as such, is given over to the secular arm, in

order to be led to death the next day, after being publicly

excommunicated by the Church. The judges yield to the views of the

prelate. The registrar enters the sentence of death, and the session

rises.

Peter Cauchon is the first to leave the chapel. Outside he meets several

English captains who are waiting for the issue of the deliberations. One

of them, the Earl of Warwick, says to the prelate:

"Well, what has been decided shall be done with the witch?"

"_Farewell!_ It is done!" answers the Bishop with glee.

"The Maid--".

"Shall be burned to-morrow--burned to death in public," interrupts

Bishop Cauchon.

CHAPTER XI.

THE PYRE.

During the evening of May 29, 1431, the rumor spreads through Rouen that

the relapsed sinner is to be burned to death on the following day. That

same night carpenters raise the necessary scaffoldings while others

build the pyre and plant the stake. Early the next morning companies of

English archers form a cordon around the market-place, where Joan Darc

is to be executed, and a double file extends into one of the streets

that runs into the place. The two files of soldiers leave a wide space

between them, connecting the street with the vacant area left around the

scaffoldings. These are three in number, the highest of the three being

at a little distance from the other two. On one of these, the one to the

right, which is covered with purple cloth, rises a daised seat of

crimson, ornamented with tufts of white feathers and fringed with gold.

A row of seats equally decked extends on both sides of the central and

daised throne, which is reached by several steps covered with rich

tapestry. The scaffold to the left is of the same dimensions as the

first, but it, as well as the benches thereon, is draped in black. The

last of the three scaffolds consists of solid masonry about ten feet

high, broad at the bottom, and ending in a narrow platform in the

middle of which stands a stake furnished with iron chains and clamps.

The platform is reached by a narrow set of stairs that is lost to sight

in the midst of an enormous pile of fagots mixed with straw and

saturated with bitumen and sulphur. The executioners have just heaped up

the combustibles on the four sides of the pile of masonry. Tall poles,

fastened in the ground close to the pyre bear banners on which the

following legends are to be read in large white letters on a black

ground:

"Joan, who had herself called the Maid, condemned to be burned alive."

"Falsifier, misleader, and deceiver of the people."

"Soothsayer, superstitious, blasphemer of God."

"Presumptuous, apostate from the faith of Jesus Christ, idolatress,

cruel, dissolute."

"Invoker of devils."

"Schismatic, relapsed."[116]

At eight all the bells of Rouen begin tolling the funeral knell. Poor

Joan, she loved the bells so well in her childhood! The May sun, that

same sun that shone upon the first defeat of the English before Orleans,

pure and luminous, floods the three scaffolds with its light. The crowd

grows thicker around the space kept vacant by the archers; other

spectators are grouped at the windows and on the balconies of the old

frame houses with pointed gables that enclose the market place.

Presently flags and plumes are seen waving, the steel of the casques,

the gold and precious stones of the mitres and crosiers are seen shining

between the two files of archers. The casqued and mitred gentry are the

English captains and the prelates. Prominent among them is the Cardinal

of Winchester, Clad in the Roman purple and followed by the Bishop of

Boulogne and the Bishop of Beauvais, Peter Cauchon. Behind them come the

Earl of Warwick and other noble captains. Slowly and majestically they

ascend the stairs of the platform to the right of the pyre. The Cardinal

takes his seat upon the dais, while the other dignitaries distribute

themselves to his right and left. The other scaffold, that is draped in

black, is occupied by the judges of the process, its institutor, its

assessors and its registrars.

The appearance and arrival of these illustrious, learned or holy

personages does not satisfy the gaping crowd; the condemned girl has not

yet appeared. Menacing clamors begin to circulate. These are loudest

among the soldiers and the Burgundian partisans, who say:

"Will the Bishop keep his promise this time? Woe to him if he trifles

with us."

"Will the witch be burned at last?"

"The fagots are ready; the executioners are holding the lighted wicks."

"She ought to be burned twice over, the infamous relapsed sinner!"

"She had the brazenness to declare that she abjured under the pressure

of force! She persists in declaring herself inspired!"

"What an insolent liar! By St. George! could she ever have vanquished us

without the assistance of the devil, us the best archers in the world? I

was at the battle of Patay, where the best men of England were mowed

down. I saw whole legions of demons rush upon us at her command. We

could be vanquished only by such witchery."

"Those demons, sir archer, were French soldiers!"

"Blood and death! Do you imagine plain soldiers are able to beat us?

They were demons, by St. George! real horned and clawed demons, armed

with flaming swords--they plunged over our heads and pelted us with

stones and balls!"

"It might have been the furious projectiles from some artillery pieces

that were masked behind some hedge, sir archer."

"Artillery pieces of Satan, yes; but of France, no!"

"As true as our Cardinal has his red hat on his head, if the strumpet of

the Armagnacs is not burned this time, myself and the other archers of

my company will roast Bishop Cauchon together with all his tonsured

brethren."

"Ha, ha, ha, ha! That is well said, my Hercules! To roast Bishop Cauchon

like a pig! That would be a funny spectacle!"

"They are taking long! Death to the witch!"

"Do they expect us to sleep here to-night?"

"To the fagots with the heretic!"

"Death to the relapsed sinner!"

"To the pyre with the invoker of demons! The strumpet! Death to Joan!"

"She cheated the people!"

"She denies the religion of Jesus Christ!"

"To the pyre with the idolatress! The apostate! To the pyre with her,

quick and soon!"

Such are the clamors of the English and the partisans of Burgundy. The

royalists or Armagnacs are much less numerous. A few of them, especially

women, experience a return of pity for Joan Darc, whose abjuration

incensed all those who believed her inspired. With some this indignation

still is uppermost and in full force. As these sentiments are

indicative of sympathy, they are not uttered aloud but whispered out of

fear of the English.

"Well, though the Maid's strength once failed her, it will not fail her

to-day."

"It would seem that she had not lied to us. She will now maintain until

death that she is inspired of God. Poor child."

"And yet she abjured!"

"Whoever lied once may lie again."

"If she abjured it was out of fear of the flames--that can be easily

understood."

"She proved herself a coward! And she was thought so brave!"

"Well, in the face of the pyre one may well tremble! Just look at those

fagots soaked in pitch."

"When one thinks that the whole pile will be in flames all around Joan

like so much straw on fire, singeing and consuming her flesh!"

"My hair stands on end at the bare thought."

"Poor child! What a torture!"

"What else can you expect? Our seigneurs and the doctors of canon law

condemn her. She must be guilty!"

"Such learned men could not be mistaken. We must believe them."

"When the Church has uttered herself we must bow down in silence. A body

has religion, or has none."

"Well, I have no suspicions. I am an Armagnac and a royalist, and I

detest the English rule. I looked upon Joan as upon a saint before her

condemnation. Now I cannot even take pity upon her. It would be throwing

discredit upon her judges. My religion as a good Catholic shuts my

mouth. We must believe without reasoning."

"Did not the ecclesiastical tribunal show how merciful the Church is by

accepting Joan's repentance?"

"But why did she relapse!"

"So much the worse for her if she is now burned. It will be her own

doing."

"You must admit that by voluntarily going to the pyre she proves her

courage. She is an intrepid girl!"

"She is simply displaying her rebellion and idolatrous boastfulness."

"Did not Joan Darc defeat the English in a score of battles? Did she not

have the King consecrated at Rheims? Answer!"

"What you say is true. But our seigneurs the bishops judge such matters

differently, and better than we could. This is the way I reason, and it

is as simple as correct: The Church is infallible; the Church condemns

Joan; consequently Joan is guilty."

This method of reasoning, which sways the minds of the more orthodox,

prevails over the timid and rare utterances that betoken interest in and

sympathy for Joan; she is destined to behold even those who had remained

French under English rule led astray by the recent Pharisees, and

impassibly assist at her execution, the same as her master Jesus, who,

sentenced to a malefactor's death, saw the poor and suffering people

whom he loved so well, look gapingly on at the execution of a sentence

of death that was also pronounced by the holy doctors of the law and by

the priests of his time.

Suddenly a deep commotion is seen swaying the mob. It announces the

approach of the condemned woman.

Standing on a cart drawn by a horse, Joan Darc is clad in a "san

benito," a long black gown painted over with tongues of flame, and

bearing on her head a pasteboard mitre on which are printed the words:

"Idolatress," "Heretic," "Relapsed Sinner." The monk Isambard of La

Pierre, one of her judges, stands near her on the wagon and imparts to

her the last consolations. She seems to listen to him, but his tokens of

compassion reach her ear only as a confused sound. She no longer expects

aught from man. Her face, raised to heaven, looks into infinite space.

She feels detached from earth, she has shaken off her last human

terrors. For a moment she is overcome with fear. "Oh!" cries she,

sobbing, "must my body, so clean of all stain, be destroyed by fire! I

would prefer to be beheaded!" But after this last cry, drawn from her by

the dread of bodily pain, her soul resumes its mastery, and the virgin

of Gaul proceeds resolutely to the pyre. The wagon stops at the foot of

the platform on which the Cardinal of Winchester, the two Bishops and

the captains are enthroned, in their mitres and their casques.

The monk Isambard of La Pierre alights from the cart and motions Joan

Darc to follow him. He assists her with his arm, seeing that the length

of her robe impedes her movements. The unhappy girl walks with

difficulty. Arrived before the main platform, the monk addresses the

victim:

"Joan, kneel down, to receive in a humble posture the excommunication

and sentence that Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais is to pronounce

upon you."

Joan Darc kneels down in the dust at the foot of the platform that is

covered with purple. Bishop Peter Cauchon rises, bows to the Cardinal of

Winchester, and advances to the edge of the platform.

From the ranks of the English soldiers the cries are heard:

"The devil take any further prayers!"

"On with the execution!"

"Is it a new scheme to keep the strumpet from roasting? We have had

enough dilly-dallying!"

"Look out, Bishop! You shall not cheat us this time!"

"To the pyre, without further ado! To the pyre with the sorceress! Death

to the girl or to the Bishop!"

Bishop Cauchon silences the growing tumult with a significant gesture

and says in a sonorous voice: "My very dear brothers, if a member

suffers, the apostle said to the Corinthians, the whole body suffers.

Thus when heresy infects one member of our holy Church, it is urgent to

separate it from all others, lest its rottenness contaminate the

mystical body of our Lord. The sacred institutions have decided, my very

dear brothers, that, in order to free the faithful from the poison of

the heretics, these vipers may not be allowed to devour the bosom of our

mother the Church. Wherefore we, Bishop of Beauvais, by divine grace,

assisted by the learned and very reverend John Lemaitre and John

Graverant, Inquisitors of the faith, say to you Joan, commonly styled

the Maid:--We justly pronounced you idolatrous, a soothsayer, an invoker

of devils, bloodthirsty, dissolute, schismatic and heretic. You abjured

your crimes and voluntarily signed this abjuration with your own hand.

But you quickly returned to your damnable errors, like the dog returns

to his vomit. On account of this do we now excommunicate you and

pronounce you a relapsed heretic. We sentence you to be extirpated from

the midst of the faithful like a rotten, leprous member, and we deliver

you, and abandon you, and cast you off into the hands of secular

justice, and request it that, apart from your death and the mutilation

of your members, it treat you with moderation!"

The sentence is received with an explosion of shouts of ferocious joy.

The English soldiers signify their satisfaction. The mob looks at Joan

Darc with horror. One of the assessors descends from the platform and

speaks to Isambard in a low voice, whereupon the latter turns to Joan:

"You have heard your sentence, rise, my daughter."

Joan Darc rises, and pointing to heaven as if taking the spheres for her

witness, says in a loud voice and with an accent of crushing reproach to

Bishop Cauchon, who remains standing near the edge of the platform above

her:

"Bishop! Bishop! I die at your hands!"

Despite his audacity, Peter Cauchon trembles, grows pale, bows his head

before the girl's anathema, and hastens to resume his seat near the

Cardinal.

Two executioners draw near at the words of the prelate consigning Joan

Darc to the secular powers. Each seizes her by an arm and they lead her

to the pyre, Isambard following.

"Father," says Joan to the latter, "I wish to have a cross, so as to die

contemplating it."

The request being overheard by several English soldiers, they answer:

"You need no cross, relapsed sinner!"

"Witch! To the fagots with you!"

"You only want to gain time!"

"We have had enough delays--death to the heretic!"

"To the fagots! To the fagots!"

The monk Isambard says a few words in the ear of the assessor; the

latter leaves hurriedly in the direction of a neighboring church. One of

the two executioners, a fellow with a blood-stained apron and a

hardened face, who also overhears Joan's request, feels deeply affected.

Tears are seen to gather in his eyes. He pulls his knife from his belt,

and cuts in two a stick that he holds in his hand; in his hurry he drops

his knife to the ground, takes a string from his pocket, ties the two

pieces of wood in the shape of a rude cross, roughly thrusts aside two

English soldiers who stand in his way, and then, handing the cross to

the monk, falls back a few steps, contemplating the victim with

something akin to adoration.

The monk passes the cross to Joan Darc, who, seizing it with transport

and taking it to her lips, says: "Thank you, Father!"

"I have sent to the Church of St. Ouen for a large crucifix bearing the

image of our Savior. It will be held at a distance before your eyes as

long as possible. Address your prayers to Jesus Christ," the monk

answered in a low voice.

"Tell them to hold it high so that I may see the image of the Savior to

the very end."

Again cries break out from the ranks of the English soldiers:

"Will there ever be an end of this?"

"What is the tonsured fellow whispering to the witch?"

"Let him travel to the devil in her company!"

"To the fagots with the witch, and quickly, too!"

"To the flames, both the monk and the Maid!"

Led to the foot of the pyre, Joan Darc measures its height with her eyes

and is unable to suppress a shudder; the executioners wave their torches

in the air in order to enliven their flames; two of them precede the

victim to the masonry platform within the pile of fagots; they cover it

up with straw and twigs, the top layer of the heaped-up combustibles;

they then hold up the iron clamps that are fastened to the stake.

"Climb up this way," says one of the executioners to Joan Darc, pointing

to the stairs, "you will not come down again, witch!"

"I shall accompany you, my dear daughter, to the top of the pyre," says

the monk.

Joan Darc slowly ascends the steps, greatly embarrassed in her movements

by the folds of her gown, and reaches the top of the pyre. A tremendous

shout breaks forth from the mob. When the noise subsides, Joan cries out

aloud: "God alone inspired my actions!"

Hisses and furious imprecations drown her voice. The Cardinal of

Winchester, the Bishops, judges, and captains rise simultaneously so as

to obtain a better view of the execution. After placing Joan standing

with her back against the stake, one of the executioners fastens her to

it by the waist and neck with iron carcans; a chain holds her feet; only

her hands remain free, and with them she clasps the rough wooden cross

that one of the English executioners has just fashioned for her, and

that she holds close to her lips. A priest in a surplice, carrying one

of those large silver crucifixes usually borne at the head of

processions, arrives in a hurry; he places himself at a distance

opposite the pyre and holds up the crucifix as high as his arms allow

him. It is the crucifix that the monk Isambard has sent for. He points

it out to Joan Darc. She turns her head towards it and keeps her eyes

fastened upon the image of Christ.

"Come, reverend Father," says one of the executioners to the monk

Isambard, "do not stay here. The flames are about to shoot up."

"In a moment," answers the monk; "I shall follow you. I only wish to

finish the prayer that I began."

"I shall make you come down faster than you would like, my reverend

mumbler of prayers," observes the executioner in a low voice.

The two executioners descend from the platform of the pyre; the monk

administers to Joan Darc the supreme consolations.

Suddenly a dry and lively crackling is heard from the base of the pyre,

followed by puffs of smoke and thin tongues of flame.

"Father!" cries Joan Darc anxiously, "descend! Descend quickly! The pyre

is on fire!"

Such is the sublime adieu of the victim to one of her judges!

The monk descends precipitately, casting an angry look at the

executioners. These light the pyre at several places. Volumes of black

smoke rise upward, and envelop Joan Darc from the public gaze. The fire

glistens; it runs and twines itself through the lower layers of the

fagots; presently the pile is all on fire; the flames rise; they are

fanned by the breeze that blows away the cloud of smoke, and Joan Darc

is again exposed to view. The fire reaches the straw and twigs on top of

the platform on which her feet rest. Her gown begins to smoke. Firmly

held by the triple iron bands that clasp her neck, waist and feet, she

writhes and utters a piercing cry:

"WATER! WATER!"

A second later, as if regretting the vain appeal for mercy that pain

drew from her, she exclaims:

"IT IS GOD WHO INSPIRED ME!"

At that moment Joan Darc's gown takes fire and the flames that flare up

from it join the hundred other lambent tongues that shoot upward. From

the midst of the tall furnace a voice in a weird accent is heard to

exclaim:

"JESUS!"

* * * * *

The virgin of Gaul has expiated her immortal glory.

The flames subside, and finally go out. A smoldering brasier surrounds

the base of the masonry pile that served as the center for the pyre. At

its top, and held fast by the iron clamps fastened to the charred and

smoking stake, is seen a blackened, shapeless, nameless something--all

that is left of the Maid.

The two executioners place a ladder on the side of the stone pile; they

climb up, strike down with their axes the members of her who was Joan

Darc, and with the help of long iron forks hurl them all down into the

brasier. Other executioners lay fresh fagots on the heap. Tall flames

re-rise. When the second fire is wholly extinguished nothing remains but

reddish ashes interspersed with charred human bones, a skull among them.

The ashes and bones are gathered by the executioners and thrown into a

wooden box, which they lay on a hand-barrow, and, followed by a large

and howling mob, the executioners proceed to the banks of the Seine,

into which they throw the remains of the redeeming angel of France.

Finally, the Cardinal, the Bishops, the captains and the ecclesiastical

judges leave the market place of Rouen in procession, in the same order

that they had entered. They have gloated over the death of Joan Darc.

The justice of the courtiers, of the warriors and of the infallible

clergy is satisfied.

EPILOGUE.

I, Jocelyn the Champion, now a centennarian as was my ancestor Amael who

fought under Charles Martel and who later knew Charlemagne, wrote the

above narrative, a part of which, the tragedy of Joan Darc's execution,

I witnessed with my own eyes.

On the eve of her execution I arrived in Rouen from Vaucouleurs.

Communication was difficult in those days between distantly located

provinces. It thus happened that the tidings of Joan's captivity at

Rouen and her trial did not for some time reach her family. Finally

apprized thereof by public rumor, her family was anxious to learn of her

fate, but, despite their desolation, they neither were able nor did they

dare to undertake the long journey. I called upon Denis Laxart, the

worthy relative of Joan whom I had long known intimately, and offered

him to go to Rouen myself. My fervent admiration for the plebeian

heroine inspired me with the resolution. Despite my advanced age, I was

not frightened by the perils of the journey. But I was poor. This

difficulty was overcome by Denis Laxart and several good people of

Vaucouleurs. The necessary funds were scraped together, a horse was

bought, and I started with my grandson at the crupper.

Arrived at Rouen on May 29, 1431, after encountering no end of

difficulties, I learned of the solemn abjuration of Joan Darc and saw

how her enemies pronounced her a fraud and her former friends, a coward.

I was not then aware of the black plot that had brought about the

apostasy; nevertheless, my own instinct and reasoning, the recollection

of my frequent conversations with Denis Laxart, who had often recounted

to me the details of Joan's childhood, and finally the reports of her

glorious deeds that penetrated as far as Lorraine--everything combined

to point out to me that an abjuration that so utterly belied the courage

and loyalty of the martial maid concealed some sinister mystery.

The following day I appeared early at the market place, taking my

grandson with me. We managed to stand in the front ranks of the mass

that witnessed the execution and that crowded us forward. We were pushed

so far forward that we stood near the benign executioner who volunteered

to fashion a cross for the unhappy victim, and who in his haste dropped

his knife. It fell at my grandson's feet. I took it up and shall

preserve it as the emblem that is to accompany this narrative.

Immediately after the execution of Joan Darc I was the witness of a

strange incident. Near myself and my grandson was a priest wrapped up in

his gown and cowl. He mumbled to himself. He had watched with seeming

indifference the preparations for Joan Darc's execution, until when,

writhing with pain, she cried out: "Water! Water!" At these words the

priest trembled. He raised his hands to heaven and murmured: "Mercy! Oh,

mercy!" Finally, when with her last breath Joan Darc made the supreme

invocation--"Jesus!" the priest cried out in a suffocated voice:

"I am damned!"

He immediately dropped to the ground, a prey to violent convulsions. He

still lay there in a tremor when the mob left the market place to follow

the executioners who were to throw the remains of Joan Darc into the

Seine. Moved with pity for the man whom all others took no notice of, or

considered possessed of an evil spirit, my grandson and myself raised

him and took him to our inn that faced the market place. We carried him

to our room and tended him. By degrees he came to himself and looked

upon us with distracted eyes that seemed to reveal deep repentance and

also terror, as he cried: "I am damned! I am the accomplice and

instrument of the Bishop of Beauvais in the killing of Joan! God will

punish me!"

That priest was the Canon Loyseleur.[117] The gowned monster did taste

repentance--strange, incredible revulsion, that I never would have

believed had I not myself witnessed its unquestionable evidence. The

wretch was devoured with remorse; he admitted his guilt to us, and when

he noticed the horror that his admissions filled us with he cried: "A

curse upon the help I rendered to you, Bishop of Beauvais, assassin!"

With quavering voice he asked me whether I pitied Joan. My tears

answered him. He then wished to know who I was, and learning of my

passionate admiration for the virgin of Gaul and my desire for the sake

of her desolate family, to be informed upon what had happened, Canon

Loyseleur seemed struck by a sudden thought, and asked me to wait for

him at the inn that very evening. "Never," said he, "shall I be able to

make amends for or expiate my crime; but I wish to place in your hands

the means to smite the butchers of the victim."

That same evening Canon Loyseleur brought to me a bundle of parchments.

It contained:

1.--The general confession of Joan Darc transcribed by himself on the

very day when he received it, and when that great soul unveiled itself

to him in all its heroic simplicity.

2.--Notes which he had taken and preserved after his interviews with the

emissary of George of La Tremouille, and which revealed the plot that

was concocted against Joan by the people of the Court, the captains and

the ecclesiastics, before the first meeting of the heroine and Charles

VII.

3.--A copy of a contemporaneous chronicle entitled "Journal of the Siege

of Orleans," and another memoir written by Percival of Cagny, equerry to

the Duke of Alençon, who did not leave Joan's side from the time of the

raising of the siege of Orleans down to the siege of Paris. These two

manuscripts were a part of the documents that Bishop Peter Cauchon had

gathered to draw up the indictment.

4.--One of the minutes of the process, containing the questions put to

Joan, and her answers.

5.--A complete admission and detailed account of the machinations of

Loyseleur and Bishop Cauchon to capture Joan's confidence in her prison,

as also of the plans they had laid during a long conversation before the

trial.

These materials were given to me by the canon in the hope of enabling me

some day to rehabilitate the memory of Joan Darc. As to himself, he

realized that, pursued by inexorable remorse, he would soon die, or lose

his senses. On that very morning he did not dare to take his seat on the

platform among Joan's judges, fearing she might recognize him. The

spectacle of her martyrdom and agony finally overthrew him. After

depositing these manuscripts in my hands, the canon left me

precipitately and with a wild look. I know not what became of him.

The next morning I left Rouen with my grandson, and once again in

Vaucouleurs I proceeded to write the story of Joan Darc. Thanks to the

information I received from Denis Laxart and the documents of Canon

Loyseleur, I have been able to draw up the above truthful narrative. To

it I have attached the executioner's knife, as an additional relic of

our family.

Until now and in this country of Lorraine, the cradle of the virgin of

Gaul, I have vainly sought to rehabilitate Joan in the eyes of her

friends and even of her parents. All have given me the same answer that

I received so often in Rouen and so many other towns:

"Despite her glory, despite her immense services rendered to France,

Joan is guilty, Joan is criminal, Joan will burn in the everlasting

flames of hell--the INFALLIBLE CHURCH CONDEMNED HER!"

But the judgment of men passes--true glory is imperishable. Some day the

Maid will be exalted and her murderers spat upon.

THE END.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Trial and Condemnation, and Proceedings of the Rehabilitation of

Joan of Arc, known as The Maid_, by Jules Quicherat, after the

manuscripts in the Royal Library; vol. I, p. 39.

[2] The same.

[3] _Trial of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 40.

[4] _Trial of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 74.

[5] _Song of Merlin the Enchanter_, in Villemarqué, _Popular Songs of

Brittany_, vol. I, p. 219.

[6] Villemarqué, _Popular Songs of Brittany_, vol. I, p. 219.

[7] The citation is literal. Denis Laxart, uncle to Jeannette, testified

to having heard her say: "Has it not been long prophesied that France,

desolated by a woman, would be restored by a woman?" (_Proceedings of

the Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc_, edited by Jules Quicherat, vol. II,

p. 444.) The wife of Henry Rolhaire also deposed and said: "Jeannette

asked: 'Have you not heard it said that France, lost by a woman, would

be saved by a virgin of the marches (borders) of Lorraine, born near an

oak forest?'" (The same, p. 447.)

[8] "_Descendet virgo dorsum sagitarii._ Among other writings was found

a prophecy of Merlin, speaking in this manner."--Testimony of Matthew

Thomassin, given by Quicherat in the _Rehabilitation_, vol. III, p. 15.

[9] See "The Iron Arrow Head," the tenth of this series.

[10] Volume one of this series, "The Gold Sickle."

[11] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 67.

[12] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 87.

[13] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 88.

[14] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 88.

[15] The same, p. 89.

[16] The same, p. 89.

[17] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 77.

[18] The same, p. 77.

[19] The same, pp. 79, 80.

[20] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 79.

[21] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 80.

[22] The same, p. 80.

[23] _Trial and Condemnation_, vol. I, p. 80.

[24] _Trial and Condemnation_, vol. I, p. 80.

[25] _Trial and Condemnation_, vol. I, p. 88.

[26] _Trial and Condemnation_, vol. I, p. 29.

[27] _"Mammae ejas erant pulcherimas"_--Testimony of the Duke of Alençon

(_Proceedings of the Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc_, vol. III, p. 220).

[28] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 127.

[29] _Trial and Condemnation_, vol. I, p. 67.

[30] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 79.

[31] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 435.

[32] This, and the succeeding answers of Joan in this interview which

are authenticated by references to the _Proceedings of the

Rehabilitation_, are all, with the exception of two otherwise

designated, taken from that portion of vol. II between pp. 436 and 439.

[33] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation._

[34] The same.

[35] The same.

[36] The same.

[37] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation._

[38] The same, vol. II, p. 459.

[39] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation._

[40] The same, vol. II, p. 80.

[41] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 401.

[42] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 657.

[43] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 657.

[44] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 567.

[45] See the preceding volume of this series, "The Iron Trevet."

[46] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 450.

[47] Godefroid, _Chronicle of the Maid_, p. 500; Godefroid, _Chronicle

of Berry_, p. 376; _Memoirs of Argus and Richemont_.

[48] Godefroid, p. 754. quoted by Jules Quicherat, in the introduction

to the _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, p. 27.

[49] _Chronicle of Percival of Cagny_, vol. IV. p. 19.

[50] _Chronicle of Percival of Cagny_, vol. IV. p. 19.

[51] _Chronicle of Percival of Cagny_, vol. IV. p. 19.

[52] It is useless to cite the chroniclers severally on the subject of

this shameless and abominable examination. They are all agreed on the

fact.

[53] _Chronicle of Percival of Cagny_, cited by Quicherat, vol. III, p.

71.

[54] The interrogations and the replies thereto by Joan are here taken

in the main literally from _The Chronicle of the Maid_, a manuscript now

in the possession of the Institute at Paris, No. 245, cited by Quicherat

in his _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. IV, p. 209; also in

the _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, pp. 204-206.

[55] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 75. This

remarkable reply is quoted literally, like the rest of the inquisition.

[56] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. I, p. 87. Even

English authors have been wont to quote with praise this virile letter

of the Maid.

[57] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, p. 84.

[58] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, p. 80.

[59] _Journal of the Siege of Orleans_, vol. IV, p. 105.

[60] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, Vol. III, p. 74.

[60a] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, Vol. III, p. 74.

[61] _Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc_, vol. III, p. 72, the

testimony of Louis Leconte.

[62] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, p. 87.

[63] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, p. 124.

[64] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, p. 110.

[65] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, pp. 108-109.

[66] The same.

[67] The same.

[68] The same, p. 179.

[69] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, pp. 69-70.

[70] _Trial and Condemnation_, vol. I, p. 29.

[71] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, pp. 69-70.

[72] The same.

[73] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, p. 70.

[74] The same.

[75] The same.

[76] _Journal of the Siege of Orleans_, vol. III, p. 171.

[77] _Journal of the Siege of Orleans_, vol. III, p. 171.

[78] _Trial and Condemnation_, vol. I, p. 49.

[79] _Chronicle of the Maid_, pp. 220-224, cited by Quicherat, vol. IV.

Also the _Journal of the Siege of Orleans_.

[80] _Chronicle of the Maid_, p. 224.

[81] _Chronicle of the Maid_, p. 225.

[82] The same.

[83] John Chartier, vol. IV, p. 57. Given by Quicherat.

[84] John Chartier, vol. IV, p. 58, cited by Quicherat. The decision of

the council is here given literally from the records. There can be no

doubt on this abominable attempt at treason.

[85] John Chartier, vol. IV, p. 58.

[86] John Chartier, vol. IV, p. 59.

[87] John Chartier, vol. IV, p, 60.

[88] The same.

[89] Deposition of Simon Charles, Master of Petitions. _Proceedings of

the Rehabilitation_, vol. III, p. 117; _Chronicle of the Maid_, p. 227;

John Chartier, vol. IV, p. 50. All the chronicles are in accord on this

so capital fact.

[90] Testimony of Simon Charles.

[91] _Chronicle of Percival of Cagny_, vol. IV, p. 171.

[92] _Journal of the Siege of Orleans_, vol. IV, p. 179.

[93] Literally the testimony of John Pasquerel, Joan's confessor, who

confessed her that very day. (_Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol.

III, pp. 108-109.)

[94] _Trial and Condemnation_, vol. I, p. 79.

[95] Testimony of Colette, wife of Millet, _Proceedings of the

Rehabilitation_, vol. III, p. 124.

[96] _Journal of the Siege of Orleans_, vol. IV, p. 160.

[97] _Journal of the Siege of Orleans_, vol. IV, p. 160.

[98] _Journal of the Siege of Orleans_, vol. IV, p. 166.

[99] The same.

[100] _Journal of the Siege of Orleans_, vol. IV, p. 166.

[101] _Proceedings of the Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 180.

[102] Testimony of the Duke of Alençon, _Proceedings of the

Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 79.

[103] _Chronicle of the Maid_, vol. III, p. 129.

[104] Testimony of Gerardin of Epinal, _Proceedings of the

Rehabilitation_, vol. II, p. 421.

[105] This letter is taken literally from the Archives of Lille. See

also Quicherat, vol. V, p. 126.

[106] With some abridgment, the text of this chronicle is cited almost

literally.

[107] Latin, _from the egg_, i.e., the beginning.

[108] Rymer, cited by Quicherat, vol. X, p. 459.

[109] The same.

[110] Rymer, cited by Quicherat, vol. X, p. 459.

[111] Rogier, cited by Quicherat, vol. V, pp. 168-169.

[112] Fowler, bird-catcher.

[113] _Tractatus de haersi pauperum de Lugduno_, cited by Marten in his

_Thesaurus of Anecdotes_, vol. V, collected 1787.

[114] This answer of Joan, together with all the others, and all the

questions and decrees of the judges throughout the trial, are taken

literally from the records.

[115] _"Medicina animae dictae Joannae"_, literally, _Trial and

Condemnation_, vol. I, p. 297.

[116] These inscriptions are all recorded by an eye-witness, Clement of

Franquenberg; see Quicherat, vol. IV, p. 460.

[117] For the repentance of Canon Loyseleur, see _The Proceedings of the

Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc_, vol. II, p. 178.