On the ninth of May there was a summons, and Manchon and I got out

materials together and started. But this time we were to go to one of

the other towers--not the one which was Joan's prison. It was round and

grim and massive, and built of the plainest and thickest and solidest

masonry--a dismal and forbidding structure. (3) We entered the circular

room on the ground floor, and I saw what turned me sick--the instruments

of torture and the executioners standing ready! Here you have the black

heart of Cauchon at the blackest, here you have the proof that in his

nature there was no such thing as pity. One wonders if he ever knew his

mother or ever had a sister.

Cauchon was there, and the Vice-Inquisitor and the Abbot of St.

Corneille; also six others, among them that false Loyseleur. The

guards were in their places, the rack was there, and by it stood the

executioner and his aids in their crimson hose and doublets, meet color

for their bloody trade. The picture of Joan rose before me stretched

upon the rack, her feet tied to one end of it, her wrists to the other,

and those red giants turning the windlass and pulling her limbs out of

their sockets. It seemed to me that I could hear the bones snap and the

flesh tear apart, and I did not see how that body of anointed

servants of the merciful Jesus could sit there and look so placid and

indifferent.

After a little, Joan arrived and was brought in. She saw the rack, she

saw the attendants, and the same picture which I had been seeing must

have risen in her mind; but do you think she quailed, do you think she

shuddered? No, there was no sign of that sort. She straightened herself

up, and there was a slight curl of scorn about her lip; but as for fear,

she showed not a vestige of it.

This was a memorable session, but it was the shortest one of all the

list. When Joan had taken her seat a resume of her “crimes” was read to

her. Then Cauchon made a solemn speech. It in he said that in the course

of her several trials Joan had refused to answer some of the questions

and had answered others with lies, but that now he was going to have the

truth out of her, and the whole of it.

Her manner was full of confidence this time; he was sure he had found a

way at last to break this child's stubborn spirit and make her beg

and cry. He would score a victory this time and stop the mouths of the

jokers of Rouen. You see, he was only just a man after all, and couldn't

stand ridicule any better than other people. He talked high, and his

splotchy face lighted itself up with all the shifting tints and signs

of evil pleasure and promised triumph--purple, yellow, red, green--they

were all there, with sometimes the dull and spongy blue of a drowned

man, the uncanniest of them all. And finally he burst out in a great

passion and said:

“There is the rack, and there are its ministers! You will reveal all now

or be put to the torture.

“Speak.”

Then she made that great answer which will live forever; made it without

fuss or bravado, and yet how fine and noble was the sound of it:

“I will tell you nothing more than I have told you; no, not even if you

tear the limbs from my body. And even if in my pain I did say something

otherwise, I would always say afterward that it was the torture that

spoke and not I.”

There was no crushing that spirit. You should have seen Cauchon.

Defeated again, and he had not dreamed of such a thing. I heard it said

the next day, around the town, that he had a full confession all written

out, in his pocket and all ready for Joan to sign. I do not know that

that was true, but it probably was, for her mark signed at the bottom of

a confession would be the kind of evidence (for effect with the public)

which Cauchon and his people were particularly value, you know.

No, there was no crushing that spirit, and no beclouding that clear

mind. Consider the depth, the wisdom of that answer, coming from an

ignorant girl. Why, there were not six men in the world who had ever

reflected that words forced out of a person by horrible tortures

were not necessarily words of verity and truth, yet this unlettered

peasant-girl put her finger upon that flaw with an unerring instinct.

I had always supposed that torture brought out the truth--everybody

supposed it; and when Joan came out with those simple common-sense words

they seemed to flood the place with light. It was like a lightning-flash

at midnight which suddenly reveals a fair valley sprinkled over with

silver streams and gleaming villages and farmsteads where was only an

impenetrable world of darkness before. Manchon stole a sidewise look at

me, and his face was full of surprise; and there was the like to be seen

in other faces there. Consider--they were old, and deeply cultured, yet

here was a village maid able to teach them something which they had not

known before. I heard one of them mutter:

“Verily it is a wonderful creature. She has laid her hand upon an

accepted truth that is as old as the world, and it has crumbled to dust

and rubbish under her touch. Now whence got she that marvelous insight?”

The judges laid their heads together and began to talk now. It was

plain, from chance words which one caught now and then, that Cauchon and

Loyseleur were insisting upon the application of the torture, and that

most of the others were urgently objecting.

Finally Cauchon broke out with a good deal of asperity in his voice and

ordered Joan back to her dungeon. That was a happy surprise for me. I

was not expecting that the Bishop would yield.

When Manchon came home that night he said he had found out why the

torture was not applied.

There were two reasons. One was, a fear that Joan might die under the

torture, which would not suit the English at all; the other was,

that the torture would effect nothing if Joan was going to take back

everything she said under its pains; and as to putting her mark to a

confession, it was believed that not even the rack would ever make her

do that.

So all Rouen laughed again, and kept it up for three days, saying:

“The sow has littered six times, and made six messes of it.”

And the palace walls got a new decoration--a mitered hog carrying a

discarded rack home on its shoulder, and Loyseleur weeping in its wake.

Many rewards were offered for the capture of these painters, but nobody

applied. Even the English guard feigned blindness and would not see the

artists at work.

The Bishop's anger was very high now. He could not reconcile himself to

the idea of giving up the torture. It was the pleasantest idea he had

invented yet, and he would not cast it by. So he called in some of his

satellites on the twelfth, and urged the torture again. But it was a

failure.

With some, Joan's speech had wrought an effect; others feared she might

die under torture; others did not believe that any amount of suffering

could make her put her mark to a lying confession. There were fourteen

men present, including the Bishop. Eleven of them voted dead against the

torture, and stood their ground in spite of Cauchon's abuse. Two voted

with the Bishop and insisted upon the torture. These two were Loyseleur

and the orator--the man whom Joan had bidden to “read his book”--Thomas

de Courcelles, the renowned pleader and master of eloquence.

Age has taught me charity of speech; but it fails me when I think of

those three names--Cauchon, Courcelles, Loyseleur.

(1) Hog, pig.

(2) Cochonner, to litter, to farrow; also, “to make a mess of”!

(3) The lower half of it remains to-day just as it was then; the upper

half is of a later date. -- TRANSLATOR.

17 Supreme in Direst Peril

ANOTHER ten days' wait. The great theologians of that treasury of all

valuable knowledge and all wisdom, the University of Paris, were still

weighing and considering and discussing the Twelve Lies.

I had had but little to do these ten days, so I spent them mainly in

walks about the town with Noel. But there was no pleasure in them, our

spirits being so burdened with cares, and the outlook for Joan

growing steadily darker and darker all the time. And then we naturally

contrasted our circumstances with hers: this freedom and sunshine, with

her darkness and chains; our comradeship, with her lonely estate; our

alleviations of one sort and another, with her destitution in all.

She was used to liberty, but now she had none; she was an out-of-door

creature by nature and habit, but now she was shut up day and night in

a steel cage like an animal; she was used to the light, but now she was

always in a gloom where all objects about her were dim and spectral; she

was used to the thousand various sounds which are the cheer and music

of a busy life, but now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the

sentry pacing his watch; she had been fond of talking with her mates,

but now there was no one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it

was gone dumb now; she had been born for comradeship, and blithe and

busy work, and all manner of joyous activities, but here were only

dreariness, and leaden hours, and weary inaction, and brooding

stillness, and thoughts that travel by day and night and night and day

round and round in the same circle, and wear the brain and break the

heart with weariness. It was death in life; yes, death in life, that is

what it must have been. And there was another hard thing about it all. A

young girl in trouble needs the soothing solace and support and

sympathy of persons of her own sex, and the delicate offices and gentle

ministries which only these can furnish; yet in all these months of

gloomy captivity in her dungeon Joan never saw the face of a girl or a

woman. Think how her heart would have leaped to see such a face.

Consider. If you would realize how great Joan of Arc was, remember that

it was out of such a place and such circumstances that she came week

after week and month after month and confronted the master intellects

of France single-handed, and baffled their cunningest schemes, defeated

their ablest plans, detected and avoided their secretest traps and

pitfalls, broke their lines, repelled their assaults, and camped on the

field after every engagement; steadfast always, true to her faith and

her ideals; defying torture, defying the stake, and answering threats

of eternal death and the pains of hell with a simple “Let come what may,

here I take my stand and will abide.”

Yes, if you would realize how great was the soul, how profound the

wisdom, and how luminous the intellect of Joan of Arc, you must study

her there, where she fought out that long fight all alone--and not

merely against the subtlest brains and deepest learning of France, but

against the ignoble deceits, the meanest treacheries, and the hardest

hearts to be found in any land, pagan or Christian.

She was great in battle--we all know that; great in foresight; great

in loyalty and patriotism; great in persuading discontented chiefs and

reconciling conflicting interests and passions; great in the ability to

discover merit and genius wherever it lay hidden; great in picturesque

and eloquent speech; supremely great in the gift of firing the hearts

of hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of turning hares into

heroes, slaves and skulkers into battalions that march to death with

songs on their lips. But all these are exalting activities; they keep

hand and heart and brain keyed up to their work; there is the joy of

achievement, the inspiration of stir and movement, the applause which

hails success; the soul is overflowing with life and energy, the

faculties are at white heat; weariness, despondency, inertia--these do

not exist.

Yes, Joan of Arc was great always, great everywhere, but she was

greatest in the Rouen trials.

There she rose above the limitations and infirmities of our human

nature, and accomplished under blighting and unnerving and hopeless

conditions all that her splendid equipment of moral and intellectual

forces could have accomplished if they had been supplemented by the

mighty helps of hope and cheer and light, the presence of friendly

faces, and a fair and equal fight, with the great world looking on and

wondering.

18 Condemned Yet Unafraid

TOWARD THE END of the ten-day interval the University of Paris rendered

its decision concerning the Twelve Articles. By this finding, Joan

was guilty upon all the counts: she must renounce her errors and make

satisfaction, or be abandoned to the secular arm for punishment.

The University's mind was probably already made up before the Articles

were laid before it; yet it took it from the fifth to the eighteenth to

produce its verdict. I think the delay may have been caused by temporary

difficulties concerning two points:

1. As to who the fiends were who were represented in Joan's Voices; 2.

As to whether her saints spoke French only.

You understand, the University decided emphatically that it was fiends

who spoke in those Voices; it would need to prove that, and it did. It

found out who those fiends were, and named them in the verdict: Belial,

Satan, and Behemoth. This has always seemed a doubtful thing to me,

and not entitled to much credit. I think so for this reason: if the

University had actually known it was those three, it would for very

consistency's sake have told how it knew it, and not stopped with the

mere assertion, since it had made Joan explain how she knew they were

not fiends. Does not that seem reasonable? To my mind the University's

position was weak, and I will tell you why. It had claimed that Joan's

angels were devils in disguise, and we all know that devils do disguise

themselves as angels; up to that point the University's position was

strong; but you see yourself that it eats its own argument when it turns

around and pretends that it can tell who such apparitions are, while

denying the like ability to a person with as good a head on her

shoulders as the best one the University could produce.

The doctors of the University had to see those creatures in order to

know; and if Joan was deceived, it is argument that they in their turn

could also be deceived, for their insight and judgment were surely not

clearer than hers.

As to the other point which I have thought may have proved a difficulty

and cost the University delay, I will touch but a moment upon that, and

pass on. The University decided that it was blasphemy for Joan to say

that her saints spoke French and not English, and were on the French

side in political sympathies. I think that the thing which troubled the

doctors of theology was this: they had decided that the three Voices

were Satan and two other devils; but they had also decided that these

Voices were not on the French side--thereby tacitly asserting that they

were on the English side; and if on the English side, then they must be

angels and not devils. Otherwise, the situation was embarrassing. You

see, the University being the wisest and deepest and most erudite body

in the world, it would like to be logical if it could, for the sake

of its reputation; therefore it would study and study, days and days,

trying to find some good common-sense reason for proving the Voices to

be devils in Article No. 1 and proving them to be angels in Article No.

10. However, they had to give it up. They found no way out; and so, to

this day, the University's verdict remains just so--devils in No. 1,

angels in No. 10; and no way to reconcile the discrepancy.

The envoys brought the verdict to Rouen, and with it a letter for

Cauchon which was full of fervid praise. The University complimented

him on his zeal in hunting down this woman “whose venom had infected the

faithful of the whole West,” and as recompense it as good as promised

him “a crown of imperishable glory in heaven.” Only that!--a crown in

heaven; a promissory note and no indorser; always something away off

yonder; not a word about the Archbishopric of Rouen, which was the thing

Cauchon was destroying his soul for. A crown in heaven; it must have

sounded like a sarcasm to him, after all his hard work. What should he

do in heaven? he did not know anybody there.

On the nineteenth of May a court of fifty judges sat in the

archiepiscopal palace to discuss Joan's fate. A few wanted her delivered

over to the secular arm at once for punishment, but the rest insisted

that she be once more “charitably admonished” first.

So the same court met in the castle on the twenty-third, and Joan was

brought to the bar. Pierre Maurice, a canon of Rouen, made a speech

to Joan in which he admonished her to save her life and her soul by

renouncing her errors and surrendering to the Church. He finished with

a stern threat: if she remained obstinate the damnation of her soul was

certain, the destruction of her body probable. But Joan was immovable.

She said:

“If I were under sentence, and saw the fire before me, and the

executioner ready to light it--more, if I were in the fire itself, I

would say none but the things which I have said in these trials; and I

would abide by them till I died.”

A deep silence followed now, which endured some moments. It lay upon me

like a weight. I knew it for an omen. Then Cauchon, grave and solemn,

turned to Pierre Maurice:

“Have you anything further to say?”

The priest bowed low, and said:

“Nothing, my lord.”

“Prisoner at the bar, have you anything further to say?”

“Nothing.”

“Then the debate is closed. To-morrow, sentence will be pronounced.

Remove the prisoner.”

She seemed to go from the place erect and noble. But I do not know; my

sight was dim with tears.

To-morrow--twenty-fourth of May! Exactly a year since I saw her go

speeding across the plain at the head of her troops, her silver helmet

shining, her silvery cape fluttering in the wind, her white plumes

flowing, her sword held aloft; saw her charge the Burgundian camp three

times, and carry it; saw her wheel to the right and spur for the duke's

reserves; saw her fling herself against it in the last assault she was

ever to make. And now that fatal day was come again--and see what it was

bringing!

19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail

JOAN HAD been adjudged guilty of heresy, sorcery, and all the other

terrible crimes set forth in the Twelve Articles, and her life was in

Cauchon's hands at last. He could send her to the stake at once. His

work was finished now, you think? He was satisfied? Not at all. What

would his Archbishopric be worth if the people should get the idea into

their heads that this faction of interested priests, slaving under the

English lash, had wrongly condemned and burned Joan of Arc, Deliverer

of France? That would be to make of her a holy martyr. Then her spirit

would rise from her body's ashes, a thousandfold reinforced, and sweep

the English domination into the sea, and Cauchon along with it. No,

the victory was not complete yet. Joan's guilt must be established by

evidence which would satisfy the people. Where was that evidence to be

found? There was only one person in the world who could furnish it--Joan

of Arc herself. She must condemn herself, and in public--at least she

must seem to do it.

But how was this to be managed? Weeks had been spent already in trying

to get her to surrender--time wholly wasted; what was to persuade her

now? Torture had been threatened, the fire had been threatened; what was

left? Illness, deadly fatigue, and the sight of the fire, the presence

of the fire! That was left.

Now that was a shrewd thought. She was but a girl after all, and, under

illness and exhaustion, subject to a girl's weaknesses.

Yes, it was shrewdly thought. She had tacitly said herself that under

the bitter pains of the rack they would be able to extort a false

confession from her. It was a hint worth remembering, and it was

remembered.

She had furnished another hint at the same time: that as soon as the

pains were gone, she would retract the confession. That hint was also

remembered.

She had herself taught them what to do, you see. First, they must wear

out her strength, then frighten her with the fire. Second, while the

fright was on her, she must be made to sign a paper.

But she would demand a reading of the paper. They could not venture

to refuse this, with the public there to hear. Suppose that during the

reading her courage should return?--she would refuse to sign then. Very

well, even that difficulty could be got over. They could read a short

paper of no importance, then slip a long and deadly one into its place

and trick her into signing that.

Yet there was still one other difficulty. If they made her seem to

abjure, that would free her from the death-penalty. They could keep her

in a prison of the Church, but they could not kill her.

That would not answer; for only her death would content the English.

Alive she was a terror, in a prison or out of it. She had escaped from

two prisons already.

But even that difficulty could be managed. Cauchon would make promises

to her; in return she would promise to leave off the male dress. He

would violate his promises, and that would so situate her that she would

not be able to keep hers. Her lapse would condemn her to the stake, and

the stake would be ready.

These were the several moves; there was nothing to do but to make them,

each in its order, and the game was won. One might almost name the day

that the betrayed girl, the most innocent creature in France and the

noblest, would go to her pitiful death.

The world knows now that Cauchon's plan was as I have sketched it to

you, but the world did not know it at that time. There are sufficient

indications that Warwick and all the other English chiefs except the

highest one--the Cardinal of Winchester--were not let into the secret,

also, that only Loyseleur and Beaupere, on the French side, knew the

scheme. Sometimes I have doubted if even Loyseleur and Beaupere knew the

whole of it at first. However, if any did, it was these two.

It is usual to let the condemned pass their last night of life in peace,

but this grace was denied to poor Joan, if one may credit the rumors of

the time. Loyseleur was smuggled into her presence, and in the character

of priest, friend, and secret partisan of France and hater of England,

he spent some hours in beseeching her to do “the only right an righteous

thing”--submit to the Church, as a good Christian should; and that then

she would straightway get out of the clutches of the dreaded English and

be transferred to the Church's prison, where she would be honorably used

and have women about her for jailers. He knew where to touch her. He

knew how odious to her was the presence of her rough and profane English

guards; he knew that her Voices had vaguely promised something which she

interpreted to be escape, rescue, release of some sort, and the chance

to burst upon France once more and victoriously complete the great work

which she had been commissioned of Heaven to do. Also there was that

other thing: if her failing body could be further weakened by loss of

rest and sleep now, her tired mind would be dazed and drowsy on the

morrow, and in ill condition to stand out against persuasions, threats,

and the sight of the stake, and also be purblind to traps and snares

which it would be swift to detect when in its normal estate.

I do not need to tell you that there was no rest for me that night. Nor

for Noel. We went to the main gate of the city before nightfall, with a

hope in our minds, based upon that vague prophecy of Joan's Voices which

seemed to promise a rescue by force at the last moment. The immense news

had flown swiftly far and wide that at last Joan of Arc was condemned,

and would be sentenced and burned alive on the morrow; and so crowds of

people were flowing in at the gate, and other crowds were being refused

admission by the soldiery; these being people who brought doubtful

passes or none at all. We scanned these crowds eagerly, but there was

nothing about them to indicate that they were our old war-comrades in

disguise, and certainly there were no familiar faces among them. And

so, when the gate was closed at last, we turned away grieved, and more

disappointed than we cared to admit, either in speech or thought.

The streets were surging tides of excited men. It was difficult to

make one's way. Toward midnight our aimless tramp brought us to the

neighborhood of the beautiful church of St. Ouen, and there all was

bustle and work. The square was a wilderness of torches and people;

and through a guarded passage dividing the pack, laborers were carrying

planks and timbers and disappearing with them through the gate of the

churchyard. We asked what was going forward; the answer was:

“Scaffolds and the stake. Don't you know that the French witch is to be

burned in the morning?”

Then we went away. We had no heart for that place.

At dawn we were at the city gate again; this time with a hope which our

wearied bodies and fevered minds magnified into a large probability.

We had heard a report that the Abbot of Jumieges with all his monks was

coming to witness the burning. Our desire, abetted by our imagination,

turned those nine hundred monks into Joan's old campaigners, and their

Abbot into La Hire or the Bastard or D'Alencon; and we watched them file

in, unchallenged, the multitude respectfully dividing and uncovering

while they passed, with our hearts in our throats and our eyes swimming

with tears of joy and pride and exultation; and we tried to catch

glimpses of the faces under the cowls, and were prepared to give signal

to any recognized face that we were Joan's men and ready and eager to

kill and be killed in the good cause. How foolish we were!

But we were young, you know, and youth hopeth all things, believeth all

things.

20 The Betrayal

IN THE MORNING I was at my official post. It was on a platform raised

the height of a man, in the churchyard, under the eaves of St. Ouen. On

this same platform was a crowd of priests and important citizens, and

several lawyers. Abreast it, with a small space between, was another and

larger platform, handsomely canopied against sun and rain, and richly

carpeted; also it was furnished with comfortable chairs, and with two

which were more sumptuous than the others, and raised above the general

level. One of these two was occupied by a prince of the royal blood of

England, his Eminence the Cardinal of Winchester; the other by Cauchon,

Bishop of Beauvais. In the rest of the chairs sat three bishops, the

Vice-Inquisitor, eight abbots, and the sixty-two friars and lawyers who

had sat as Joan's judges in her late trials.

Twenty steps in front of the platforms was another--a table-topped

pyramid of stone, built up in retreating courses, thus forming steps.

Out of this rose that grisly thing, the stake; about the stake bundles

of fagots and firewood were piled. On the ground at the base of the

pyramid stood three crimson figures, the executioner and his assistants.

At their feet lay what had been a goodly heap of brands, but was now

a smokeless nest of ruddy coals; a foot or two from this was

a supplemental supply of wood and fagots compacted into a pile

shoulder-high and containing as much as six packhorse loads. Think of

that. We seem so delicately made, so destructible, so insubstantial; yet

it is easier to reduce a granite statue to ashes than it is to do that

with a man's body.

The sight of the stake sent physical pains tingling down the nerves of

my body; and yet, turn as I would, my eyes would keep coming back t it,

such fascination has the gruesome and the terrible for us.

The space occupied by the platforms and the stake was kept open by a

wall of English soldiery, standing elbow to elbow, erect and stalwart

figures, fine and sightly in their polished steel; while from behind

them on every hand stretched far away a level plain of human heads; and

there was no window and no housetop within our view, howsoever distant,

but was black with patches and masses of people.

But there was no noise, no stir; it was as if the world was dead. The

impressiveness of this silence and solemnity was deepened by a leaden

twilight, for the sky was hidden by a pall of low-hanging storm-clouds;

and above the remote horizon faint winkings of heat-lightning played,

and now and then one caught the dull mutterings and complainings of

distant thunder.

At last the stillness was broken. From beyond the square rose an

indistinct sound, but familiar--court, crisp phrases of command; next I

saw the plain of heads dividing, and the steady swing of a marching host

was glimpsed between. My heart leaped for a moment. Was it La Hire and

his hellions? No--that was not their gait. No, it was the prisoner and

her escort; it was Joan of Arc, under guard, that was coming; my spirits

sank as low as they had been before. Weak as she was they made her walk;

they would increase her weakness all they could. The distance was not

great--it was but a few hundred yards--but short as it was it was a

heavy tax upon one who had been lying chained in one spot for months,

and whose feet had lost their powers from inaction. Yes, and for a

year Joan had known only the cool damps of a dungeon, and now she was

dragging herself through this sultry summer heat, this airless and

suffocating void. As she entered the gate, drooping with exhaustion,

there was that creature Loyseleur at her side with his head bent to her

ear. We knew afterward that he had been with her again this morning in

the prison wearying her with his persuasions and enticing her with

false promises, and that he was now still at the same work at the gate,

imploring her to yield everything that would be required of her, and

assuring her that if she would do this all would be well with her: she

would be rid of the dreaded English and find safety in the powerful

shelter and protection of the Church. A miserable man, a stony-hearted

man!

The moment Joan was seated on the platform she closed her eyes and

allowed her chin to fall; and so sat, with her hands nestling in her

lap, indifferent to everything, caring for nothing but rest. And she was

so white again--white as alabaster.

How the faces of that packed mass of humanity lighted up with interest,

and with what intensity all eyes gazed upon this fragile girl! And how

natural it was; for these people realized that at last they were looking

upon that person whom they had so long hungered to see; a person whose

name and fame filled all Europe, and made all other names and all other

renowns insignificant by comparisons; Joan of Arc, the wonder of the

time, and destined to be the wonder of all times!

And I could read as by print, in their marveling countenances, the

words that were drifting through their minds: “Can it be true, is it

believable, that it is this little creature, this girl, this child with

the good face, the sweet face, the beautiful face, the dear and bonny

face, that has carried fortresses by storm, charged at the head of

victorious armies, blown the might of England out of her path with a

breath, and fought a long campaign, solitary and alone, against the

massed brains and learning of France--and had won it if the fight had

been fair!”

Evidently Cauchon had grown afraid of Manchon because of his pretty

apparent leanings toward Joan, for another recorder was in the chief

place here, which left my master and me nothing to do but sit idle and

look on.

Well, I suppose that everything had been done which could be thought of

to tire Joan's body and mind, but it was a mistake; one more device

had been invented. This was to preach a long sermon to her in that

oppressive heat.

When the preacher began, she cast up one distressed and disappointed

look, then dropped her head again. This preacher was Guillaume Erard, an

oratorical celebrity. He got his text from the Twelve Lies. He emptied

upon Joan al the calumnies in detail that had been bottled up in that

mass of venom, and called her all the brutal names that the Twelve were

labeled with, working himself into a whirlwind of fury as he went on;

but his labors were wasted, she seemed lost in dreams, she made no sign,

she did not seem to hear. At last he launched this apostrophe:

“O France, how hast thou been abused! Thou hast always been the home of

Christianity; but now, Charles, who calls himself thy King and governor,

indorses, like the heretic and schismatic that he is, the words and

deeds of a worthless and infamous woman!” Joan raised her head, and her

eyes began to burn and flash. The preacher turned to her: “It is to you,

Joan, that I speak, and I tell you that your King is schismatic and a

heretic!”

Ah, he might abuse her to his heart's content; she could endure that;

but to her dying moment she could never hear in patience a word against

that ingrate, that treacherous dog our King, whose proper place was

here, at this moment, sword in hand, routing these reptiles and saving

this most noble servant that ever King had in this world--and he would

have been there if he had not been what I have called him. Joan's loyal

soul was outraged, and she turned upon the preacher and flung out a few

words with a spirit which the crowd recognized as being in accordance

with the Joan of Arc traditions:

“By my faith, sir! I make bold to say and swear, on pain of death, that

he is the most noble Christian of all Christians, and the best lover of

the faith and the Church!”

There was an explosion of applause from the crowd--which angered the

preacher, for he had been aching long to hear an expression like this,

and now that it was come at last it had fallen to the wrong person:

he had done all the work; the other had carried off all the spoil. He

stamped his foot and shouted to the sheriff:

“Make her shut up!”

That made the crowd laugh.

A mob has small respect for a grown man who has to call on a sheriff to

protect him from a sick girl.

Joan had damaged the preacher's cause more with one sentence than he had

helped it with a hundred; so he was much put out, and had trouble to get

a good start again. But he needn't have bothered; there was no occasion.

It was mainly an English-feeling mob. It had but obeyed a law of

our nature--an irresistible law--to enjoy and applaud a spirited and

promptly delivered retort, no matter who makes it. The mob was with the

preacher; it had been beguiled for a moment, but only that; it would

soon return. It was there to see this girl burnt; so that it got that

satisfaction--without too much delay--it would be content.

Presently the preacher formally summoned Joan to submit to the Church.

He made the demand with confidence, for he had gotten the idea from

Loyseleur and Beaupere that she was worn to the bone, exhausted, and

would not be able to put forth any more resistance; and, indeed, to look

at her it seemed that they must be right. Nevertheless, she made one

more effort to hold her ground, and said, wearily:

“As to that matter, I have answered my judges before. I have told them

to report all that I have said and done to our Holy Father the Pope--to

whom, and to God first, I appeal.”

Again, out of her native wisdom, she had brought those words of

tremendous import, but was ignorant of their value. But they could have

availed her nothing in any case, now, with the stake there and these

thousands of enemies about her. Yet they made every churchman there

blench, and the preacher changed the subject with all haste. Well

might those criminals blench, for Joan's appeal of her case to the Pope

stripped Cauchon at once of jurisdiction over it, and annulled all

that he and his judges had already done in the matter and all that they

should do in it henceforth.

Joan went on presently to reiterate, after some further talk, that she

had acted by command of God in her deeds and utterances; then, when an

attempt was made to implicate the King, and friends of hers and his, she

stopped that. She said:

“I charge my deeds and words upon no one, neither upon my King nor any

other. If there is any fault in them, I am responsible and no other.”

She was asked if she would not recant those of her words and deeds which

had been pronounced evil by her judges. Here answer made confusion and

damage again:

“I submit them to God and the Pope.”

The Pope once more! It was very embarrassing. Here was a person who was

asked to submit her case to the Church, and who frankly consents--offers

to submit it to the very head of it. What more could any one require?

How was one to answer such a formidably unanswerable answer as that?

The worried judges put their heads together and whispered and planned

and discussed. Then they brought forth this sufficiently shambling

conclusion--but it was the best they could do, in so close a place: they

said the Pope was so far away; and it was not necessary to go to him

anyway, because the present judges had sufficient power and authority

to deal with the present case, and were in effect “the Church” to that

extent. At another time they could have smiled at this conceit, but not

now; they were not comfortable enough now.

The mob was getting impatient. It was beginning to put on a threatening

aspect; it was tired of standing, tired of the scorching heat; and the

thunder was coming nearer, the lightning was flashing brighter. It was

necessary to hurry this matter to a close. Erard showed Joan a written

form, which had been prepared and made all ready beforehand, and asked

her to abjure.

“Abjure? What is abjure?”

She did not know the word. It was explained to her by Massieu. She tried

to understand, but she was breaking, under exhaustion, and she could not

gather the meaning. It was all a jumble and confusion of strange words.

In her despair she sent out this beseeching cry:

“I appeal to the Church universal whether I ought to abjure or not!”

Erard exclaimed:

“You shall abjure instantly, or instantly be burnt!”

She glanced up, at those awful words, and for the first time she saw the

stake and the mass of red coals--redder and angrier than ever now under

the constantly deepening storm-gloom. She gasped and staggered up out

of her seat muttering and mumbling incoherently, and gazed vacantly upon

the people and the scene about her like one who is dazed, or thinks he

dreams, and does not know where he is.

The priests crowded about her imploring her to sign the paper, there

were many voices beseeching and urging her at once, there was great

turmoil and shouting and excitement among the populace and everywhere.

“Sign! sign!” from the priests; “sign--sign and be saved!” And Loyseleur

was urging at her ear, “Do as I told you--do not destroy yourself!”

Joan said plaintively to these people:

“Ah, you do not do well to seduce me.”

The judges joined their voices to the others. Yes, even the iron in

their hearts melted, and they said:

“O Joan, we pity you so! Take back what you have said, or we must

deliver you up to punishment.”

And now there was another voice--it was from the other platform--pealing

solemnly above the din: Cauchon's--reading the sentence of death!

Joan's strength was all spent. She stood looking about her in a

bewildered way a moment, then slowly she sank to her knees, and bowed

her head and said:

“I submit.”

They gave her no time to reconsider--they knew the peril of that. The

moment the words were out of her mouth Massieu was reading to her the

abjuration, and she was repeating the words after him mechanically,

unconsciously--and smiling; for her wandering mind was far away in some

happier world.

Then this short paper of six lines was slipped aside and a long one of

many pages was smuggled into its place, and she, noting nothing, put her

mark on it, saying, in pathetic apology, that she did not know how to

write. But a secretary of the King of England was there to take care

of that defect; he guided her hand with his own, and wrote her

name--Jehanne.

The great crime was accomplished. She had signed--what? She did not

know--but the others knew. She had signed a paper confessing herself

a sorceress, a dealer with devils, a liar, a blasphemer of God and

His angels, a lover of blood, a promoter of sedition, cruel, wicked,

commissioned of Satan; and this signature of hers bound her to resume

the dress of a woman.

There were other promises, but that one would answer, without the

others; and that one could be made to destroy her.

Loyseleur pressed forward and praised her for having done “such a good

day's work.”

But she was still dreamy, she hardly heard.

Then Cauchon pronounced the words which dissolved the excommunication

and restored her to her beloved Church, with all the dear privileges of

worship. Ah, she heard that! You could see it in the deep gratitude that

rose in her face and transfigured it with joy.

But how transient was that happiness! For Cauchon, without a tremor of

pity in his voice, added these crushing words:

“And that she may repent of her crimes and repeat them no more, she is

sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, with the bread of affliction and

the water of anguish!”

Perpetual imprisonment! She had never dreamed of that--such a thing had

never been hinted to her by Loyseleur or by any other. Loyseleur had

distinctly said and promised that “all would be well with her.” And the

very last words spoken to her by Erard, on that very platform, when he

was urging her to abjure, was a straight, unqualified promised--that if

she would do it she should go free from captivity.

She stood stunned and speechless a moment; then she remembered, with

such solacement as the thought could furnish, that by another clear

promise made by Cauchon himself--she would at least be the Church's

captive, and have women about her in place of a brutal foreign soldiery.

So she turned to the body of priests and said, with a sad resignation:

“Now, you men of the Church, take me to your prison, and leave me no

longer in the hands of the English”; and she gathered up her chains and

prepared to move.

But alas! now came these shameful words from Cauchon--and with them a

mocking laugh:

“Take her to the prison whence she came!”

Poor abused girl! She stood dumb, smitten, paralyzed. It was pitiful to

see. She had been beguiled, lied to, betrayed; she saw it all now.

The rumbling of a drum broke upon the stillness, and for just one moment

she thought of the glorious deliverance promised by her Voices--I read

it in the rapture that lit her face; then she saw what it was--her

prison escort--and that light faded, never to revive again. And now her

head began a piteous rocking motion, swaying slowly, this way and that,

as is the way when one is suffering unwordable pain, or when one's heart

is broken; then drearily she went from us, with her face in her hands,

and sobbing bitterly.

21 Respited Only for Torture

THERE IS no certainty that any one in all Rouen was in the secret of the

deep game which Cauchon was playing except the Cardinal of Winchester.

Then you can imagine the astonishment and stupefaction of that vast

mob gathered there and those crowds of churchmen assembled on the

two platforms, when they saw Joan of Arc moving away, alive and

whole--slipping out of their grip at last, after all this tedious

waiting, all this tantalizing expectancy.

Nobody was able to stir or speak for a while, so paralyzing was the

universal astonishment, so unbelievable the fact that the stake was

actually standing there unoccupied and its prey gone.

Then suddenly everybody broke into a fury of rage; maledictions and

charges of treachery began to fly freely; yes, and even stones: a stone

came near killing the Cardinal of Winchester--it just missed his head.

But the man who threw it was not to blame, for he was excited, and a

person who is excited never can throw straight.

The tumult was very great, indeed, for a while. In the midst of it

a chaplain of the Cardinal even forgot the proprieties so far as to

opprobriously assail the August Bishop of Beauvais himself, shaking his

fist in his face and shouting:

“By God, you are a traitor!”

“You lie!” responded the Bishop.

He a traitor! Oh, far from it; he certainly was the last Frenchman that

any Briton had a right to bring that charge against.

The Earl of Warwick lost his temper, too. He was a doughty soldier, but

when it came to the intellectuals--when it came to delicate chicane, and

scheming, and trickery--he couldn't see any further through a millstone

than another. So he burst out in his frank warrior fashion, and swore

that the King of England was being treacherously used, and that Joan

of Arc was going to be allowed to cheat the stake. But they whispered

comfort into his ear:

“Give yourself no uneasiness, my lord; we shall soon have her again.”

Perhaps the like tidings found their way all around, for good news

travels fast as well as bad. At any rate, the ragings presently quieted

down, and the huge concourse crumbled apart and disappeared. And thus we

reached the noon of that fearful Thursday.

We two youths were happy; happier than any words can tell--for we were

not in the secret any more than the rest. Joan's life was saved. We

knew that, and that was enough. France would hear of this day's infamous

work--and then! Why, then her gallant sons would flock to her standard

by thousands and thousands, multitudes upon multitudes, and their wrath

would be like the wrath of the ocean when the storm-winds sweep it; and

they would hurl themselves against this doomed city and overwhelm it

like the resistless tides of that ocean, and Joan of Arc would march

again!

In six days--seven days--one short week--noble France, grateful France,

indignant France, would be thundering at these gates--let us count the

hours, let us count the minutes, let us count the seconds! O happy day,

O day of ecstasy, how our hearts sang in our bosoms!

For we were young then, yes, we were very young.

Do you think the exhausted prisoner was allowed to rest and sleep after

she had spent the small remnant of her strength in dragging her tired

body back to the dungeon?

No, there was no rest for her, with those sleuth-hounds on her track.

Cauchon and some of his people followed her to her lair straightway;

they found her dazed and dull, her mental and physical forces in a state

of prostration. They told her she had abjured; that she had made certain

promises--among them, to resume the apparel of her sex; and that if she

relapsed, the Church would cast her out for good and all. She heard the

words, but they had no meaning to her. She was like a person who has

taken a narcotic and is dying for sleep, dying for rest from nagging,

dying to be let alone, and who mechanically does everything the

persecutor asks, taking but dull note of the things done, and but dully

recording them in the memory. And so Joan put on the gown which Cauchon

and his people had brought; and would come to herself by and by, and

have at first but a dim idea as to when and how the change had come

about.

Cauchon went away happy and content. Joan had resumed woman's dress

without protest; also she had been formally warned against relapsing. He

had witnesses to these facts. How could matters be better?

But suppose she should not relapse?

Why, then she must be forced to do it.

Did Cauchon hint to the English guards that thenceforth if they chose

to make their prisoner's captivity crueler and bitterer than ever, no

official notice would be taken of it? Perhaps so; since the guards did

begin that policy at once, and no official notice was taken of it.

Yes, from that moment Joan's life in that dungeon was made almost

unendurable. Do not ask me to enlarge upon it. I will not do it.

22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer

FRIDAY and Saturday were happy days for Noel and me. Our minds were full

of our splendid dream of France aroused--France shaking her mane--France

on the march--France at the gates--Rouen in ashes, and Joan free! Our

imagination was on fire; we were delirious with pride and joy. For we

were very young, as I have said.

We knew nothing about what had been happening in the dungeon in the

yester-afternoon. We supposed that as Joan had abjured and been taken

back into the forgiving bosom of the Church, she was being gently used

now, and her captivity made as pleasant and comfortable for her as the

circumstances would allow. So, in high contentment, we planned out our

share in the great rescue, and fought our part of the fight over and

over again during those two happy days--as happy days as ever I have

known.

Sunday morning came. I was awake, enjoying the balmy, lazy weather, and

thinking. Thinking of the rescue--what else? I had no other thought now.

I was absorbed in that, drunk with the happiness of it.

I heard a voice shouting far down the street, and soon it came nearer,

and I caught the words:

“Joan of Arc has relapsed! The witch's time has come!”

It stopped my heart, it turned my blood to ice. That was more than sixty

years ago, but that triumphant note rings as clear in my memory to-day

as it rang in my ear that long-vanished summer morning. We are so

strangely made; the memories that could make us happy pass away; it is

the memories that break our hearts that abide.

Soon other voices took up that cry--tens, scores, hundreds of voices;

all the world seemed filled with the brutal joy of it. And there were

other clamors--the clatter of rushing feet, merry congratulations,

bursts of coarse laughter, the rolling of drums, the boom and crash of

distant bands profaning the sacred day with the music of victory and

thanksgiving.

About the middle of the afternoon came a summons for Manchon and me to

go to Joan's dungeon--a summons from Cauchon. But by that time distrust

had already taken possession of the English and their soldiery again,

and all Rouen was in an angry and threatening mood. We could see plenty

of evidences of this from our own windows--fist-shaking, black looks,

tumultuous tides of furious men billowing by along the street.

And we learned that up at the castle things were going very badly,

indeed; that there was a great mob gathered there who considered the

relapse a lie and a priestly trick, and among them many half-drunk

English soldiers. Moreover, these people had gone beyond words. They

had laid hands upon a number of churchmen who were trying to enter the

castle, and it had been difficult work to rescue them and save their

lives.

And so Manchon refused to go. He said he would not go a step without

a safeguard from Warwick. So next morning Warwick sent an escort of

soldiers, and then we went. Matters had not grown peacefuler meantime,

but worse. The soldiers protected us from bodily damage, but as we

passed through the great mob at the castle we were assailed with insults

and shameful epithets. I bore it well enough, though, and said to

myself, with secret satisfaction, “In three or four short days, my lads,

you will be employing your tongues in a different sort from this--and I

shall be there to hear.”

To my mind these were as good as dead men. How many of them would still

be alive after the rescue that was coming? Not more than enough to amuse

the executioner a short half-hour, certainly.

It turned out that the report was true. Joan had relapsed. She was

sitting there in her chains, clothed again in her male attire.

She accused nobody. That was her way. It was not in her character to

hold a servant to account for what his master had made him do, and her

mind had cleared now, and she knew that the advantage which had been

taken of her the previous morning had its origin, not in the subordinate

but in the master--Cauchon.

Here is what had happened. While Joan slept, in the early morning of

Sunday, one of the guards stole her female apparel and put her male

attire in its place. When she woke she asked for the other dress, but

the guards refused to give it back. She protested, and said she was

forbidden to wear the male dress. But they continued to refuse. She had

to have clothing, for modesty's sake; moreover, she saw that she could

not save her life if she must fight for it against treacheries like

this; so she put on the forbidden garments, knowing what the end would

be. She was weary of the struggle, poor thing.

We had followed in the wake of Cauchon, the Vice-Inquisitor, and the

others--six or eight--and when I saw Joan sitting there, despondent,

forlorn, and still in chains, when I was expecting to find her situation

so different, I did not know what to make of it. The shock was very

great. I had doubted the relapse perhaps; possibly I had believed in it,

but had not realized it.

Cauchon's victory was complete. He had had a harassed and irritated

and disgusted look for a long time, but that was all gone now, and

contentment and serenity had taken its place. His purple face was full

of tranquil and malicious happiness. He went trailing his robes and

stood grandly in front of Joan, with his legs apart, and remained so

more than a minute, gloating over her and enjoying the sight of this

poor ruined creature, who had won so lofty a place for him in the

service of the meek and merciful Jesus, Saviour of the World, Lord

of the Universe--in case England kept her promise to him, who kept no

promises himself.

Presently the judges began to question Joan. One of them, named

Marguerie, who was a man with more insight than prudence, remarked upon

Joan's change of clothing, and said:

“There is something suspicious about this. How could it have come about

without connivance on the part of others? Perhaps even something worse?”

“Thousand devils!” screamed Cauchon, in a fury. “Will you shut your

mouth?”

“Armagnac! Traitor!” shouted the soldiers on guard, and made a rush for

Marguerie with their lances leveled. It was with the greatest difficulty

that he was saved from being run through the body. He made no more

attempts to help the inquiry, poor man. The other judges proceeded with

the questionings.

“Why have you resumed this male habit?”

I did not quite catch her answer, for just then a soldier's halberd

slipped from his fingers and fell on the stone floor with a crash; but

I thought I understood Joan to say that she had resumed it of her own

motion.

“But you have promised and sworn that you would not go back to it.”

I was full of anxiety to hear her answer to that question; and when it

came it was just what I was expecting. She said--quiet quietly:

“I have never intended and never understood myself to swear I would not

resume it.”

There--I had been sure, all along, that she did not know what she was

doing and saying on the platform Thursday, and this answer of hers was

proof that I had not been mistaken. Then she went on to add this:

“But I had a right to resume it, because the promises made to me have

not been kept--promises that I should be allowed to go to mass and

receive the communion, and that I should be freed from the bondage of

these chains--but they are still upon me, as you see.”

“Nevertheless, you have abjured, and have especially promised to return

no more to the dress of a man.”

Then Joan held out her fettered hands sorrowfully toward these unfeeling

men and said:

“I would rather die than continue so. But if they may be taken off, and

if I may hear mass, and be removed to a penitential prison, and have a

woman about me, I will be good, and will do what shall seem good to you

that I do.”

Cauchon sniffed scoffingly at that. Honor the compact which he and his

had made with her?

Fulfil its conditions? What need of that? Conditions had been a good

thing to concede, temporarily, and for advantage; but they have served

their turn--let something of a fresher sort and of more consequence

be considered. The resumption of the male dress was sufficient for all

practical purposes, but perhaps Joan could be led to add something to

that fatal crime. So Cauchon asked her if her Voices had spoken to her

since Thursday--and he reminded her of her abjuration.

“Yes,” she answered; and then it came out that the Voices had talked

with her about the abjuration--told her about it, I suppose. She

guilelessly reasserted the heavenly origin of her mission, and did it

with the untroubled mien of one who was not conscious that she had ever

knowingly repudiated it. So I was convinced once more that she had had

no notion of what she was doing that Thursday morning on the platform.

Finally she said, “My Voices told me I did very wrong to confess

that what I had done was not well.” Then she sighed, and said with

simplicity, “But it was the fear of the fire that made me do so.”

That is, fear of the fire had made her sign a paper whose contents she

had not understood then, but understood now by revelation of her Voices

and by testimony of her persecutors.

She was sane now and not exhausted; her courage had come back, and

with it her inborn loyalty to the truth. She was bravely and serenely

speaking it again, knowing that it would deliver her body up to that

very fire which had such terrors for her.

That answer of hers was quite long, quite frank, wholly free from

concealments or palliations. It made me shudder; I knew she was

pronouncing sentence of death upon herself. So did poor Manchon. And he

wrote in the margin abreast of it:

“RESPONSIO MORTIFERA.” Fatal answer. Yes, all present knew that it was,

indeed, a fatal answer. Then there fell a silence such as falls in a

sick-room when the watchers of the dying draw a deep breath and say

softly one to another, “All is over.”

Here, likewise, all was over; but after some moments Cauchon, wishing to

clinch this matter and make it final, put this question:

“Do you still believe that your Voices are St. Marguerite and St.

Catherine?”

“Yes--and that they come from God.”

“Yet you denied them on the scaffold?”

Then she made direct and clear affirmation that she had never had any

intention to deny them; and that if--I noted the if--“if she had made

some retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the

fire, and it was a violation of the truth.”

There it is again, you see. She certainly never knew what it was she had

done on the scaffold until she was told of it afterward by these people

and by her Voices.

And now she closed this most painful scene with these words; and there

was a weary note in them that was pathetic:

“I would rather do my penance all at once; let me die. I cannot endure

captivity any longer.”

The spirit born for sunshine and liberty so longed for release that it

would take it in any form, even that.

Several among the company of judges went from the place troubled and

sorrowful, the others in another mood. In the court of the castle we

found the Earl of Warwick and fifty English waiting, impatient for

news. As soon as Cauchon saw them he shouted--laughing--think of a man

destroying a friendless poor girl and then having the heart to laugh at

it:

“Make yourselves comfortable--it's all over with her!”

23 The Time Is at Hand

THE YOUNG can sink into abysses of despondency, and it was so with Noel

and me now; but the hopes of the young are quick to rise again, and it

was so with ours. We called back that vague promise of the Voices, and

said the one to the other that the glorious release was to happen at

“the last moment”--“that other time was not the last moment, but this

is; it will happen now; the King will come, La Hire will come, and with

them our veterans, and behind them all France!” And so we were full of

heart again, and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the

clash of steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in

fancy see our prisoner free, her chains gone, her sword in her hand.

But this dream was to pass also, and come to nothing. Late at night,

when Manchon came in, he said:

“I am come from the dungeon, and I have a message for you from that poor

child.”

A message to me! If he had been noticing I think he would have

discovered me--discovered that my indifference concerning the prisoner

was a pretense; for I was caught off my guard, and was so moved and so

exalted to be so honored by her that I must have shown my feeling in my

face and manner.

“A message for me, your reverence?”

“Yes. It is something she wishes done. She said she had noticed the

young man who helps me, and that he had a good face; and did I think he

would do a kindness for her? I said I knew you would, and asked her what

it was, and she said a letter--would you write a letter to her mother?

“And I said you would. But I said I would do it myself, and gladly; but

she said no, that my labors were heavy, and she thought the young man

would not mind the doing of this service for one not able to do it for

herself, she not knowing how to write. Then I would have sent for you,

and at that the sadness vanished out of her face. Why, it was as if

she was going to see a friend, poor friendless thing. But I was not

permitted. I did my best, but the orders remain as strict as ever,

the doors are closed against all but officials; as before, none but

officials may speak to her. So I went back and told her, and she sighed,

and was sad again. Now this is what she begs you to write to her mother.

It is partly a strange message, and to me means nothing, but she said

her mother would understand. You will 'convey her adoring love to her

family and her village friends, and say there will be no rescue, for

that this night--and it is the third time in the twelvemonth, and is

final--she has seen the Vision of the Tree.'”

“How strange!”

“Yes, it is strange, but that is what she said; and said her parents

would understand. And for a little time she was lost in dreams and

thinkings, and her lips moved, and I caught in her muttering these

lines, which she said over two or three times, and they seemed to bring

peace and contentment to her. I set them down, thinking they might have

some connection with her letter and be useful; but it was not so; they

were a mere memory, floating idly in a tired mind, and they have no

meaning, at least no relevancy.”

I took the piece of paper, and found what I knew I should find:

And when in exile wand'ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of

thee, Oh, rise upon our sight!

There was no hope any more. I knew it now. I knew that Joan's letter was

a message to Noel and me, as well as to her family, and that its object

was to banish vain hopes from our minds and tell us from her own mouth

of the blow that was going to fall upon us, so that we, being her

soldiers, would know it for a command to bear it as became us and her,

and so submit to the will of God; and in thus obeying, find assuagement

of our grief. It was like her, for she was always thinking of others,

not of herself. Yes, her heart was sore for us; she could find time to

think of us, the humblest of her servants, and try to soften our pain,

lighten the burden of our troubles--she that was drinking of the bitter

waters; she that was walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

I wrote the letter. You will know what it cost me, without my telling

you. I wrote it with the same wooden stylus which had put upon parchment

the first words ever dictated by Joan of Arc--that high summons to

the English to vacate France, two years past, when she was a lass of

seventeen; it had now set down the last ones which she was ever to

dictate. Then I broke it. For the pen that had served Joan of Arc could

not serve any that would come after her in this earth without abasement.

The next day, May 29th, Cauchon summoned his serfs, and forty-two

responded. It is charitable to believe that the other twenty were

ashamed to come. The forty-two pronounced her a relapsed heretic, and

condemned her to be delivered over to the secular arm. Cauchon thanked

them.

Then he sent orders that Joan of Arc be conveyed the next morning to

the place known as the Old Market; and that she be then delivered to the

civil judge, and by the civil judge to the executioner. That meant she

would be burnt.

All the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, the 29th, the news was

flying, and the people of the country-side flocking to Rouen to see the

tragedy--all, at least, who could prove their English sympathies and

count upon admission. The press grew thicker and thicker in the streets,

the excitement grew higher and higher. And now a thing was noticeable

again which had been noticeable more than once before--that there was

pity for Joan in the hearts of many of these people. Whenever she had

been in great danger it had manifested itself, and now it was apparent

again--manifest in a pathetic dumb sorrow which was visible in many

faces.

Early the next morning, Wednesday, Martin Ladvenu and another friar

were sent to Joan to prepare her for death; and Manchon and I went

with them--a hard service for me. We tramped through the dim corridors,

winding this way and that, and piercing ever deeper and deeper into that

vast heart of stone, and at last we stood before Joan. But she did not

know it. She sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed, thinking,

and her face was very sad. One might not know what she was thinking of.

Of her home, and the peaceful pastures, and the friends she was no more

to see? Of her wrongs, and her forsaken estate, and the cruelties which

had been put upon her? Or was it of death--the death which she had

longed for, and which was now so close?

Or was it of the kind of death she must suffer? I hoped not; for she

feared only one kind, and that one had for her unspeakable terrors. I

believed she so feared that one that with her strong will she would shut

the thought of it wholly out of her mind, and hope and believe that

God would take pity on her and grant her an easier one; and so it

might chance that the awful news which we were bringing might come as a

surprise to her at last.

We stood silent awhile, but she was still unconscious of us, still deep

in her sad musings and far away. Then Martin Ladvenu said, softly:

“Joan.”

She looked up then, with a little start and a wan smile, and said:

“Speak. Have you a message for me?”

“Yes, my poor child. Try to bear it. Do you think you can bear it?”

“Yes”--very softly, and her head drooped again.

“I am come to prepare you for death.”

A faint shiver trembled through her wasted body. There was a pause. In

the stillness we could hear our breathings. Then she said, still in that

low voice:

“When will it be?”

The muffled notes of a tolling bell floated to our ears out of the

distance.

“Now. The time is at hand.”

That slight shiver passed again.

“It is so soon--ah, it is so soon!”

There was a long silence. The distant throbbings of the bell pulsed

through it, and we stood motionless and listening. But it was broken at

last:

“What death is it?”

“By fire!”

“Oh, I knew it, I knew it!” She sprang wildly to her feet, and wound her

hands in her hair, and began to writhe and sob, oh, so piteously, and

mourn and grieve and lament, and turn to first one and then another of

us, and search our faces beseechingly, as hoping she might find help and

friendliness there, poor thing--she that had never denied these to any

creature, even her wounded enemy on the battle-field.

“Oh, cruel, cruel, to treat me so! And must my body, that has never been

defiled, be consumed today and turned to ashes? Ah, sooner would I that

my head were cut off seven times than suffer this woeful death. I had

the promise of the Church's prison when I submitted, and if I had but

been there, and not left here in the hands of my enemies, this miserable

fate had not befallen me.

“Oh, I appeal to God the Great Judge, against the injustice which has

been done me.”

There was none there that could endure it. They turned away, with the

tears running down their faces. In a moment I was on my knees at her

feet. At once she thought only of my danger, and bent and whispered in

my hear: “Up!--do not peril yourself, good heart. There--God bless you

always!” and I felt the quick clasp of her hand. Mine was the last hand

she touched with hers in life. None saw it; history does not know of it

or tell of it, yet it is true, just as I have told it. The next moment

she saw Cauchon coming, and she went and stood before him and reproached

him, saying:

“Bishop, it is by you that I die!”

He was not shamed, not touched; but said, smoothly:

“Ah, be patient, Joan. You die because you have not kept your promise,

but have returned to your sins.”

“Alas,” she said, “if you had put me in the Church's prison, and given

me right and proper keepers, as you promised, this would not have

happened. And for this I summon you to answer before God!”

Then Cauchon winced, and looked less placidly content than before, and

he turned him about and went away.

Joan stood awhile musing. She grew calmer, but occasionally she wiped

her eyes, and now and then sobs shook her body; but their violence

was modifying now, and the intervals between them were growing longer.

Finally she looked up and saw Pierre Maurice, who had come in with the

Bishop, and she said to him:

“Master Peter, where shall I be this night?”

“Have you not good hope in God?”

“Yes--and by His grace I shall be in Paradise.”

Now Martin Ladvenu heard her in confession; then she begged for the

sacrament. But how grant the communion to one who had been publicly cut

off from the Church, and was now no more entitled to its privileges

than an unbaptized pagan? The brother could not do this, but he sent

to Cauchon to inquire what he must do. All laws, human and divine, were

alike to that man--he respected none of them. He sent back orders to

grant Joan whatever she wished. Her last speech to him had reached his

fears, perhaps; it could not reach his heart, for he had none.

The Eucharist was brought now to that poor soul that had yearned for it

with such unutterable longing all these desolate months. It was a solemn

moment. While we had been in the deeps of the prison, the public courts

of the castle had been filling up with crowds of the humbler sort of

men and women, who had learned what was going on in Joan's cell, and had

come with softened hearts to do--they knew not what; to hear--they knew

not what. We knew nothing of this, for they were out of our view. And

there were other great crowds of the like caste gathered in

masses outside the castle gates. And when the lights and the other

accompaniments of the Sacrament passed by, coming to Joan in the prison,

all those multitudes kneeled down and began to pray for her, and many

wept; and when the solemn ceremony of the communion began in Joan's

cell, out of the distance a moving sound was borne moaning to our

ears--it was those invisible multitudes chanting the litany for a

departing soul.

The fear of the fiery death was gone from Joan of Arc now, to come

again no more, except for one fleeting instant--then it would pass, and

serenity and courage would take its place and abide till the end.

24 Joan the Martyr

AT NINE o'clock the Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, went forth in

the grace of her innocence and her youth to lay down her life for

the country she loved with such devotion, and for the King that had

abandoned her. She sat in the cart that is used only for felons. In one

respect she was treated worse than a felon; for whereas she was on her

way to be sentenced by the civil arm, she already bore her judgment

inscribed in advance upon a miter-shaped cap which she wore:

HERETIC, RELAPSED, APOSTATE, IDOLATER In the cart with her sat the friar

Martin Ladvenu and Maetre Jean Massieu. She looked girlishly fair and

sweet and saintly in her long white robe, and when a gush of sunlight

flooded her as she emerged from the gloom of the prison and was yet

for a moment still framed in the arch of the somber gate, the massed

multitudes of poor folk murmured “A vision! a vision!” and sank to their

knees praying, and many of the women weeping; and the moving invocation

for the dying arose again, and was taken up and borne along, a majestic

wave of sound, which accompanied the doomed, solacing and blessing her,

all the sorrowful way to the place of death. “Christ have pity! Saint

Margaret have pity! Pray for her, all ye saints, archangels, and blessed

martyrs, pray for her! Saints and angels intercede for her! From thy

wrath, good Lord, deliver her! O Lord God, save her! Have mercy on her,

we beseech Thee, good Lord!”

It is just and true what one of the histories has said: “The poor and

the helpless had nothing but their prayers to give Joan of Arc; but

these we may believe were not unavailing. There are few more pathetic

events recorded in history than this weeping, helpless, praying crowd,

holding their lighted candles and kneeling on the pavement beneath the

prison walls of the old fortress.”

And it was so all the way: thousands upon thousands massed upon their

knees and stretching far down the distances, thick-sown with the faint

yellow candle-flames, like a field starred with golden flowers.

But there were some that did not kneel; these were the English soldiers.

They stood elbow to elbow, on each side of Joan's road, and walled it in

all the way; and behind these living walls knelt the multitudes.

By and by a frantic man in priest's garb came wailing and lamenting, and

tore through the crowd and the barriers of soldiers and flung himself

on his knees by Joan's cart and put up his hands in supplication, crying

out:

“O forgive, forgive!”

It was Loyseleur!

And Joan forgave him; forgave him out of a heart that knew nothing

but forgiveness, nothing but compassion, nothing but pity for all that

suffer, let their offense be what it might. And she had no word of

reproach for this poor wretch who had wrought day and night with deceits

and treacheries and hypocrisies to betray her to her death.

The soldiers would have killed him, but the Earl of Warwick saved his

life. What became of him is not known. He hid himself from the world

somewhere, to endure his remorse as he might.

In the square of the Old Market stood the two platforms and the stake

that had stood before in the churchyard of St. Ouen. The platforms were

occupied as before, the one by Joan and her judges, the other by

great dignitaries, the principal being Cauchon and the English

Cardinal--Winchester. The square was packed with people, the windows and

roofs of the blocks of buildings surrounding it were black with them.

When the preparations had been finished, all noise and movement

gradually ceased, and a waiting stillness followed which was solemn and

impressive.

And now, by order of Cauchon, an ecclesiastic named Nicholas Midi

preached a sermon, wherein he explained that when a branch of the

vine--which is the Church--becomes diseased and corrupt, it must be cut

away or it will corrupt and destroy the whole vine. He made it appear

that Joan, through her wickedness, was a menace and a peril to the

Church's purity and holiness, and her death therefore necessary. When he

was come to the end of his discourse he turned toward her and paused a

moment, then he said:

“Joan, the Church can no longer protect you. Go in peace!”

Joan had been placed wholly apart and conspicuous, to signify the

Church's abandonment of her, and she sat there in her loneliness,

waiting in patience and resignation for the end. Cauchon addressed her

now. He had been advised to read the form of her abjuration to her, and

had brought it with him; but he changed his mind, fearing that she would

proclaim the truth--that she had never knowingly abjured--and so bring

shame upon him and eternal infamy. He contented himself with admonishing

her to keep in mind her wickednesses, and repent of them, and think of

her salvation. Then he solemnly pronounced her excommunicate and cut off

from the body of the Church. With a final word he delivered her over to

the secular arm for judgment and sentence.

Joan, weeping, knelt and began to pray. For whom? Herself? Oh, no--for

the King of France. Her voice rose sweet and clear, and penetrated all

hearts with its passionate pathos. She never thought of his treacheries

to her, she never thought of his desertion of her, she never remembered

that it was because he was an ingrate that she was here to die a

miserable death; she remembered only that he was her King, that she was

his loyal and loving subject, and that his enemies had undermined his

cause with evil reports and false charges, and he not by to defend

himself. And so, in the very presence of death, she forgot her own

troubles to implore all in her hearing to be just to him; to believe

that he was good and noble and sincere, and not in any way to blame

for any acts of hers, neither advising them nor urging them, but being

wholly clear and free of all responsibility for them. Then, closing, she

begged in humble and touching words that all here present would pray

for her and would pardon her, both her enemies and such as might look

friendly upon her and feel pity for her in their hearts.

There was hardly one heart there that was not touched--even the English,

even the judges showed it, and there was many a lip that trembled

and many an eye that was blurred with tears; yes, even the English

Cardinal's--that man with a political heart of stone but a human heart

of flesh.

The secular judge who should have delivered judgment and pronounced

sentence was himself so disturbed that he forgot his duty, and Joan went

to her death unsentenced--thus completing with an illegality what had

begun illegally and had so continued to the end. He only said--to the

guards:

“Take her”; and to the executioner, “Do your duty.”

Joan asked for a cross. None was able to furnish one. But an English

soldier broke a stick in two and crossed the pieces and tied them

together, and this cross he gave her, moved to it by the good heart that

was in him; and she kissed it and put it in her bosom. Then Isambard de

la Pierre went to the church near by and brought her a consecrated one;

and this one also she kissed, and pressed it to her bosom with rapture,

and then kissed it again and again, covering it with tears and pouring

out her gratitude to God and the saints.

And so, weeping, and with her cross to her lips, she climbed up the

cruel steps to the face of the stake, with the friar Isambard at her

side. Then she was helped up to the top of the pile of wood that was

built around the lower third of the stake and stood upon it with her

back against the stake, and the world gazing up at her breathless. The

executioner ascended to her side and wound chains around her slender

body, and so fastened her to the stake. Then he descended to finish his

dreadful office; and there she remained alone--she that had had so many

friends in the days when she was free, and had been so loved and so

dear.

All these things I saw, albeit dimly and blurred with tears; but I could

bear no more. I continued in my place, but what I shall deliver to you

now I got by others' eyes and others' mouths. Tragic sounds there were

that pierced my ears and wounded my heart as I sat there, but it is as

I tell you: the latest image recorded by my eyes in that desolating hour

was Joan of Arc with the grace of her comely youth still unmarred; and

that image, untouched by time or decay, has remained with me all my

days. Now I will go on.

If any thought that now, in that solemn hour when all transgressors

repent and confess, she would revoke her revocation and say her great

deeds had been evil deeds and Satan and his fiends their source, they

erred. No such thought was in her blameless mind. She was not thinking

of herself and her troubles, but of others, and of woes that might

befall them. And so, turning her grieving eyes about her, where rose the

towers and spires of that fair city, she said:

“Oh, Rouen, Rouen, must I die here, and must you be my tomb? Ah, Rouen,

Rouen, I have great fear that you will suffer for my death.”

A whiff of smoke swept upward past her face, and for one moment terror

seized her and she cried out, “Water! Give me holy water!” but the next

moment her fears were gone, and they came no more to torture her.

She heard the flames crackling below her, and immediately distress for

a fellow-creature who was in danger took possession of her. It was the

friar Isambard. She had given him her cross and begged him to raise it

toward her face and let her eyes rest in hope and consolation upon it

till she was entered into the peace of God. She made him go out from the

danger of the fire. Then she was satisfied, and said:

“Now keep it always in my sight until the end.”

Not even yet could Cauchon, that man without shame, endure to let her

die in peace, but went toward her, all black with crimes and sins as he

was, and cried out:

“I am come, Joan, to exhort you for the last time to repent and seek the

pardon of God.”

“I die through you,” she said, and these were the last words she spoke

to any upon earth.

Then the pitchy smoke, shot through with red flashes of flame, rolled

up in a thick volume and hid her from sight; and from the heart of

this darkness her voice rose strong and eloquent in prayer, and when by

moments the wind shredded somewhat of the smoke aside, there were veiled

glimpses of an upturned face and moving lips. At last a mercifully swift

tide of flame burst upward, and none saw that face any more nor that

form, and the voice was still.

Yes, she was gone from us: JOAN OF ARC! What little words they are, to

tell of a rich world made empty and poor!

CONCLUSION

JOAN'S BROTHER Jacques died in Domremy during the Great Trial at Rouen.

This was according to the prophecy which Joan made that day in the

pastures the time that she said the rest of us would go to the great

wars.

When her poor old father heard of the martyrdom it broke his heart, and

he died.

The mother was granted a pension by the city of Orleans, and upon this

she lived out her days, which were many. Twenty-four years after her

illustrious child's death she traveled all the way to Paris in the

winter-time and was present at the opening of the discussion in the

Cathedral of Notre Dame which was the first step in the Rehabilitation.

Paris was crowded with people, from all about France, who came to get

sight of the venerable dame, and it was a touching spectacle when she

moved through these reverent wet-eyed multitudes on her way to the grand

honors awaiting her at the cathedral. With her were Jean and Pierre, no

longer the light-hearted youths who marched with us from Vaucouleurs,

but war-torn veterans with hair beginning to show frost.

After the martyrdom Noel and I went back to Domremy, but presently when

the Constable Richemont superseded La Tremouille as the King's chief

adviser and began the completion of Joan's great work, we put on our

harness and returned to the field and fought for the King all through

the wars and skirmishes until France was freed of the English. It was

what Joan would have desired of us; and, dead or alive, her desire was

law for us. All the survivors of the personal staff were faithful to

her memory and fought for the King to the end. Mainly we were well

scattered, but when Paris fell we happened to be together. It was a

great day and a joyous; but it was a sad one at the same time, because

Joan was not there to march into the captured capital with us.

Noel and I remained always together, and I was by his side when death

claimed him. It was in the last great battle of the war. In that battle

fell also Joan's sturdy old enemy Talbot. He was eighty-five years old,

and had spent his whole life in battle. A fine old lion he was, with his

flowing white mane and his tameless spirit; yes, and his indestructible

energy as well; for he fought as knightly and vigorous a fight that day

as the best man there.

La Hire survived the martyrdom thirteen years; and always fighting, of

course, for that was all he enjoyed in life. I did not see him in all

that time, for we were far apart, but one was always hearing of him.

The Bastard of Orleans and D'Alencon and D'Aulon lived to see France

free, and to testify with Jean and Pierre d'Arc and Pasquerel and me at

the Rehabilitation. But they are all at rest now, these many years.

I alone am left of those who fought at the side of Joan of Arc in the

great wars.

She said I would live until those wars were forgotten--a prophecy which

failed. If I should live a thousand years it would still fail. For

whatsoever had touch with Joan of Arc, that thing is immortal.

Members of Joan's family married, and they have left descendants. Their

descendants are of the nobility, but their family name and blood bring

them honors which no other nobles receive or may hope for. You have seen

how everybody along the way uncovered when those children came yesterday

to pay their duty to me. It was not because they are noble, it is

because they are grandchildren of the brothers of Joan of Arc.

Now as to the Rehabilitation. Joan crowned the King at Rheims. For

reward he allowed her to be hunted to her death without making one

effort to save her. During the next twenty-three years he remained

indifferent to her memory; indifferent to the fact that her good name

was under a damning blot put there by the priest because of the deeds

which she had done in saving him and his scepter; indifferent to the

fact that France was ashamed, and longed to have the Deliverer's fair

fame restored. Indifferent all that time. Then he suddenly changed and

was anxious to have justice for poor Joan himself. Why? Had he become

grateful at last? Had remorse attacked his hard heart? No, he had a

better reason--a better one for his sort of man. This better reason was

that, now that the English had been finally expelled from the country,

they were beginning to call attention to the fact that this King had

gotten his crown by the hands of a person proven by the priests to

have been in league with Satan and burned for it by them as a

sorceress--therefore, of what value or authority was such a Kingship as

that? Of no value at all; no nation could afford to allow such a king to

remain on the throne.

It was high time to stir now, and the King did it. That is how Charles

VII. came to be smitten with anxiety to have justice done the memory of

his benefactress.

He appealed to the Pope, and the Pope appointed a great commission of

churchmen to examine into the facts of Joan's life and award judgment.

The Commission sat at Paris, at Domremy, at Rouen, at Orleans, and at

several other places, and continued its work during several months.

It examined the records of Joan's trials, it examined the Bastard

of Orleans, and the Duke d'Alencon, and D'Aulon, and Pasquerel, and

Courcelles, and Isambard de la Pierre, and Manchon, and me, and many

others whose names I have made familiar to you; also they examined

more than a hundred witnesses whose names are less familiar to you--the

friends of Joan in Domremy, Vaucouleurs, Orleans, and other places,

and a number of judges and other people who had assisted at the Rouen

trials, the abjuration, and the martyrdom. And out of this exhaustive

examination Joan's character and history came spotless and perfect, and

this verdict was placed upon record, to remain forever.

I was present upon most of these occasions, and saw again many faces

which I have not seen for a quarter of a century; among them some

well-beloved faces--those of our generals and that of Catherine Boucher

(married, alas!), and also among them certain other faces that filled me

with bitterness--those of Beaupere and Courcelles and a number of their

fellow-fiends. I saw Haumette and Little Mengette--edging along toward

fifty now, and mothers of many children. I saw Noel's father, and the

parents of the Paladin and the Sunflower.

It was beautiful to hear the Duke d'Alencon praise Joan's splendid

capacities as a general, and to hear the Bastard indorse these praises

with his eloquent tongue and then go on and tell how sweet and good Joan

was, and how full of pluck and fire and impetuosity, and mischief, and

mirthfulness, and tenderness, and compassion, and everything that was

pure and fine and noble and lovely. He made her live again before me,

and wrung my heart.

I have finished my story of Joan of Arc, that wonderful child, that

sublime personality, that spirit which in one regard has had no peer

and will have none--this: its purity from all alloy of self-seeking,

self-interest, personal ambition. In it no trace of these motives can

be found, search as you may, and this cannot be said of any other person

whose name appears in profane history.

With Joan of Arc love of country was more than a sentiment--it was a

passion. She was the Genius of Patriotism--she was Patriotism embodied,

concreted, made flesh, and palpable to the touch and visible to the eye.

Love, Mercy, Charity, Fortitude, War, Peace, Poetry, Music--these may be

symbolized as any shall prefer: by figures of either sex and of any age;

but a slender girl in her first young bloom, with the martyr's crown

upon her head, and in her hand the sword that severed her country's

bonds--shall not this, and no other, stand for PATRIOTISM through all

the ages until time shall end?