She was then asked whether the Queen had not asked her to leave off

wearing male clothes. She answered that that had nothing to do with

the trial.

'But,' next inquired Beaupère, 'when you were at the castle of

Beaurevoir, did not the ladies there ask you to do so?'

'Yes,' was the answer, 'and they offered to give me a woman's dress.

But the time had not yet come.' She would, she added, have yielded

sooner to the wishes of those ladies than to those of any other, the

Queen excepted.

The subject of the flags and banners used by her during her campaigns

was now entered on.

Had her standards not been copied by the men-at-arms?

'They did so at their pleasures,' she answered.

'Of what material was the banner made? If the poles were broken, were

they renewed?'

'They were,' she answered, 'when broken.'

'Did you not,' asked Beaupère, 'say that the flags made like your

banners were of good augury?'

'What I said,' answered Joan, 'to my soldiers was, that they should

attack the enemy with boldness.'

'Did you not sprinkle holy water on the banners?'

To this question Joan refused to answer.

Next she was questioned about a certain Friar Richard, the preaching

friar who had seen her at Troyes. She answered that he came to her

making the sign of the Cross, and that she told him to come up to her

without fear.

She was asked if it was true that she had pictures painted of herself

in the likeness of a saint.

'When at Arras,' she answered, 'she had seen a portrait of herself, in

which she was represented kneeling before the King and presenting him

with a letter.'

'But was there not a picture of you,' asked Beaupère, 'in your host's

house at Orleans?'

Joan of Arc knew nothing regarding such a picture.

'Did you not know,' was the next question put, 'that your partisans

had prayers and masses said in your honour?'

'If they did so,' she answered, 'it was not by my wish; but if they

prayed for me,' she added, 'there was no harm in so doing.'

She was then asked what her opinion was regarding the people who

kissed her hands and her feet, and even her clothes. She answered

that, inasmuch as she could, she prevented them doing so; but she

acknowledged that the poor people flocked eagerly around her, and that

she gave them all the assistance in her power.

She was next asked if she had not stood sponsor to some children

baptized at Rheims.

'Not at Rheims,' she said; but she had for one child at Troyes. She

had also stood sponsor for two children at Saint Denis, and she had

gladly had the boy christened by the name of Charles in honour of the

King, and the girl Joan, as it pleased their mothers.

'Did the women not touch your rings and charms?'

'Many,' she answered, 'were wont to touch both my hands and my rings;

but I know not with what intention.'

'Did she not receive the sacrament and confess herself as she passed

through the country?'

'Often,' she answered.

'And did you,' asked the priest, 'receive the sacrament in your male

attire?'

'Yes,' she said; 'but not, if I recollect right, when wearing my

armour.'

This confession of having received the Eucharist in her male dress was

made one of the accusations of sacrilege by Joan of Arc's judges.

She was next questioned about a horse she had bought from the Bishop

of Senlis, and ridden in battle.

The next point related to the supposed miraculous resurrection--a very

temporary one however--of an infant three days old at Lagny. When Joan

was in that place, this child appeared to have died, and was put

before the image of the Virgin, in front of which some young women

were kneeling. Joan of Arc joined them in their prayers, upon which it

was noticed that the supposed dead infant gave some signs of life; he

or she was baptized, and soon after expired. Joan of Arc had never for

a moment supposed that it was owing to her presence and her prayers

that this miracle had occurred.

'But,' asked Beaupère, 'was it not the common talk of the town of

Lagny that you had performed this miracle, and had been the means of

restoring the infant to life?'

'I did not inquire,' she said.

She was then asked about the woman, Catherine de la Rochelle, whom, it

may be remembered, Joan had discovered to be a vulgar impostor, and

whom she had tried to dissuade from making people believe that she

could discover hidden treasures, advising her to return to her husband

and her children.

Next she was asked why she had tried to escape from her prison tower

at Beaurevoir. She said that she had made the attempt, although

against the warning of her voices, which had counselled her to have

patience--but that Saint Catherine had comforted her after her fall

from the tower, telling her that she would recover, and also that

Compiègne would not be taken.

It was tried to prove that in order not to fall into the hands of the

enemy she intended committing suicide. To this accusation she

answered:--

'I have already said that I would sooner give up my soul into God's

keeping, than fall into the hands of the English.'

And with this ended the sixth and last public day of the heroine's

trial.

Joan of Arc's judges had found nothing to attach guilt to her in any

of her replies; but as she had been condemned before the farce was

enacted of trying her, her innocence could not save her life. As

Michelet observes, Joan of Arc's answers may have had some effect in

touching the hearts of even such men as were her judges; and it was

perhaps on this account that Cauchon thought it more prudent to

continue holding the trial with only a few, and those few picked men,

of whose sympathies, characters, and feelings he was sure. The

Bishop's ostensible reason in having the trial henceforth carried on

in private was in order 'not to tire the others.' A most thoughtful

and tender-hearted Bishop! The details of the trial were now placed in

the hands of two judges and two witnesses. Cauchon now felt he had a

free hand. On the 12th of March he had obtained the permission of the

Grand Inquisitor of the Holy Office in France to make use of the

services of his Vicar-General--his name, as has already been said, was

John Lemaître.

The first of the long series of secret interrogations was held in Joan

of Arc's prison--probably in the principal tower--on the 10th of

March.

John de la Fontaine questioned the prisoner as follows:--

'When you went to Compiègne from which place did you start?'

'From Crespy-en-Valois.'

'When you arrived at Compiègne did many days elapse before you made

the sortie?'

'I arrived secretly at an early hour of the morning, and entered the

town so that the enemy could not be aware of my arrival, and the same

day, in the evening, I made the sortie in which I was captured.'

'Were the bells of the church rung on the occasion of your arrival?'

'If they were, it was not by my command. I had not given it a

thought.'

'Did you not order them to be rung?'

'I have no recollection of having done so.'

'Did you make the sortie by the command of your voices?'

'Last Easter, when in the trenches of Melun, the voices of Saint

Catherine and Saint Margaret told me I should be taken prisoner before

St. John's Day; but that I was to keep a brave heart, and take all

that befell me with patience, and that in the end God would come to my

aid.'

'Since then, did your voices tell you that you would be taken?'

'Yes, often; nearly every day; and I implored my voices that when I

was taken I might then die, and not suffer a long imprisonment: and

the voices said, "Be without fear, for these things must happen." But

they did not tell me the time when I should be taken, for had I known

that I should not have made that sortie.'

'Did you not question them about the time in which you would be

taken?'

'I often inquired; but they never told me.'

'Did your voices cause you to make that sortie, and not tell you the

manner by which you would be captured?'

'Had I known the hour of my capture I should not have gone out

voluntarily; but had my voices ordered me to go and I had known, then

would I have gone all the same, whatever might have happened.'

'When you made the sally did you pass over the bridge at Compiègne?'

'I passed over the bridge and along the redoubt; and I charged with my

soldiers against John de Luxembourg's men. Twice were they driven

back as far as the quarters of the Burgundians; the third time half as

far. While so engaged the English arrived, and cut off our

communications. While returning towards the bridge, I was taken in the

meadows on the side nearest to Picardy.'

'Upon your banner, the one you carried, was not a picture painted

representing the world and two angels? What was the significance of

that?'

'My saints told me to carry that banner boldly.'

'Did you not also bear arms and a shield?'

'Not I; but the King gave my brothers a coat-of-arms; a shield with a

blue ground, on which were two _fleurs-de-lis_ of gold, and a sword

between.'

'Did you make a present to your brothers of those arms?'

'They were given my brothers by the King, without any request made by

me.'

'What kind of horse were you riding when you were captured?'

'I was mounted on a _demi-coursier_.'

'Who had given you that horse?'

'My King,' answered Joan of Arc; and she went on to tell them how she

had had fine horses purchased by the King for her use; she also gave

them an account of her few possessions.

There is, indeed, so much repetition in the questions and answers

during these long examinations, that it would be a weariness to the

reader did one minutely re-write them as they appear in the chronicle.

We shall therefore confine ourselves to the principal and most

important facts and statements which bear most prominently on our

heroine's career, and on the answers most characteristic made by her.

The remainder of that first day's trial in the prison consisted nearly

entirely of trying to elicit from Joan of Arc what was the special

sign or secret that she had revealed to the King at Chinon. She,

however, gave them no further information than in saying that the sign

was a beautiful and honoured mark of Divine favour. For hours she was

urged to tell of what this special sign or token consisted--whether of

precious stones, gold, or silver. Joan, who apparently was wearied out

by the pertinacity of her inquisitors, seems to have allowed herself

to mix with the reality the fabulous, and described that an angel had

appeared to Charles bringing him a crown of matchless beauty. She

seems, poor creature, half dazed and bewildered by her sufferings and

her tormentors, to have mixed up in her mind and in her replies the

actual event of the King's coronation at Rheims with her angelic

visions and voices; for to her one must have appeared as real and

actual as the other.

Nine examinations in the prison tower of Rouen were undergone by Joan

of Arc:--Once on the 10th of March; twice on the 12th, and again on

the 13th; twice on the 14th; again on the 15th; and twice more on the

17th. In all these successive trials, nothing of importance was

obtained by the judges from the prisoner. Both answers and questions

were similar to those which have already been recorded during the days

of her examinations in public. Throughout all this trying process of a

week's long and minute cross-questioning, the heroine maintained the

same firmness, and answered with the same simple dignity as on the

former occasions. Two of her answers may be justly called sublime.

When during the course of the seventh day's trial, she was asked what

doctrine Saint Michel had inspired her with, she answered:--

'The pity that I have for the Kingdom of France!'

And again, when at the close of the last day's examination she was

asked why she had taken such special care that her banner should be

carried and held near the King during the ceremony of the coronation,

she answered:--

'If it had been in the travail it was right that it should be in the

place of greatest honour.' ('_Il avait été à la peine; c'était bien

raison qu'il fut à l'honneur!_')

Glorious words, worthy of her who spoke them! They bear with them an

heroic ring, and reveal by one sublime expression the very soul and

spirit of Joan of Arc!

Little as the secret interrogations had revealed to Joan of Arc's

examiners regarding the mysterious sign they were so eager to wrest

from her, Cauchon had succeeded in inveigling his victim into making

statements he considered could be used in a charge of heresy against

her.

When bidden to say if she would be ready to submit herself regarding

all her actions to the determination of the Church, she answered that

she loved the Church, and was ready to obey its doctrines as far as

lay in her power; and on being asked to which Church she alluded,

whether to the Church Militant or to the Church Triumphant, she

replied, 'I have been sent to France by God and the Virgin Mary, and

by the saints of the Church Victorious from above, and to that Church

I submit myself, and all that I have done or may have to do!'

This answer did not satisfy Cauchon, and he again inquired to which

Church she submitted; but Joan had already answered, and would say no

more--and on this Cauchon fixed his accusation of heresy against the

heroine. Having failed throughout the trial to get Joan to say

anything incriminating regarding Charles VII. or anything which might

tend to injure him in the minds of his subjects, Cauchon had Joan

questioned as to what she thought respecting the murder of the Duke of

Orleans by Charles.

'It was a great misfortune for the kingdom of France,' was her answer.

Could the wariest statesman have better parried that question? Not on

one single occasion during the long series of questions that Joan of

Arc was made to undergo, without any counsel or help, and with some of

the subtlest brains in the country eager to involve her in damaging

statements and to entangle her in saying something which might be

taken up as injurious to Charles--that mean prince, who made so much

by her devotion to him and his cause, and in return for that devotion

had not taken a step towards attempting her deliverance--not at any

time did she drop one word or let an expression escape her which could

cause any uneasiness to the King, who had proved himself so utterly

unworthy of such a subject, or to the men about the King's person,

some of whom, if not actually guilty of having given her over to her

enemies, at any rate had allowed her to be kept during all those long

months a close prisoner, without protest or any sign of sympathy.

When the judges asked Joan if she were as willing to answer the

questions put to her, standing in the presence of the Pope, as she had

done in the presence of the Bishop of Beauvais, she replied that she

would willingly do so. The idea of referring her case to the Pope was

not at all what Cauchon wished to enter her mind; and when he found

that John de la Fontaine and two monks had visited the prisoner and

advised her to submit herself to Rome, he was furious, and threatened

them with condign punishment. They only escaped the Bishop's anger by

taking flight from Rouen. It was not too soon for Cauchon's object

that the trial was now conducted with closed doors. Joan of Arc's

courage, firmness, and simplicity, accompanied by her transparent

truth and pure fervent belief in her mission, impressed even her

judges--and much more so those who had attended the public days of her

trial as spectators. Now and again, after one of her straightforward

and brave answers, which would expose and lay bare the malicious

intention of the question, voices were heard to say in the great hall,

'Well spoken, Joan!' and an English knight was overheard to declare

that, for his part, he regretted that such a courageous maid had not

been born an Englishwoman. A reaction in favour of the heroine might

have set in, and, as we have already said, it was for fear of this

that Cauchon caused the trial in future to be held in private. It is

clear from the previous narrative that the prisoner had no one to

advise her, no one to support her. At the commencement of the trial

she asked to be allowed counsel, but Cauchon refused this most just

demand. Among the crowd of doctors and clergy it was impossible but

that, now and again, some feeling of interest, even of sympathy,

should gain a few of these men, who, in spite of their education and

surroundings, were human beings after all. But whenever such feeling

was shown, Cauchon, ever on the watch, sternly repressed its

manifestation. The name of Isambard de la Pierre should be remembered

for good; for he, although one of the creatures of the detestable

Inquisition, showed humanity to Cauchon's victim. During the

examinations it was the wont of Isambard to place himself as near as

possible to Joan of Arc, and by nudging her, or by some sign, he

attempted to help her and advise her in her answers to the questions

of the judges. Cauchon's evil eye, however, at length detected

Isambard's conduct, and he informed Warwick of it. Soon after,

Isambard was confronted by Warwick, and the latter, with many abusive

words, threatened to have him drowned in the Seine if he dared assist

Joan of Arc.

Though the Maid's treatment in the dungeon of the castle was not,

after the beginning of the trial, so barbarous as in the first days

after her arrival at Rouen, when she was treated like a caged wild

animal, the poor prisoner was watched day and night by three soldiers,

who, one must fear, outraged every sense of humanity in their

treatment of Joan. The very term _houspiller_ proves that they were

set apart to embitter the prisoner's already too cruel state. Although

Joan of Arc never herself disclosed the abominable fact, the reason

for retaining and continuing to wear her male dress was that it served

her as a protection from these ruffians. Chained to a heavy wooden

beam, her sufferings must have been at times almost beyond endurance;

but in this long torture, which was only to terminate in the flaming

death, her wonderful constancy and heaven-inspired spirit never

failed. Had she given way to a kind of despair, as happened shortly

before her final release--for only a few moments indeed--her jailers

would not have neglected to record such weakness as a sign that her

heavenly agencies had failed, if not forsaken her utterly. What

appears to have constituted the greatest privation to Joan of Arc

during her imprisonment was not being allowed the consolation of

receiving the rites of the religion she so fervently believed. During

the days on which the public examinations were held in the hall of the

castle, she was wont to be led from her dungeon by a passage leading

to the place of judgment: the castle chapel was passed in traversing

this passage. One day while going by the chapel door she asked one of

the sheriffs, Massieu, whether the Eucharist was then exposed within

the chapel, and, if so, whether she might be permitted to kneel before

the entrance. The man was humane enough to allow her to do so, but

this coming to the knowledge of one of Cauchon's familiars, the

sheriff was told if he allowed the prisoner again to kneel before the

chapel door that he would be thrown into prison--'and,' added Cauchon,

'in a prison where no light of sun or moon should appear!'

But perhaps among so many instances of cruelty and bigotry, the most

infamous act of all the many in this tragedy was that performed by the

Canon Nicolas Loiseleur, a creature of Cauchon, as false, as cruel, and

as unscrupulous as his master and patron. This reverend scoundrel had,

at the beginning of the trial, by his feigned sympathy for the

prisoner, wormed himself into Joan of Arc's confidence. He told her

that he, too, came from near her home, that he in his heart of hearts

belonged to the French side, that he was a prisoner on account of his

known devotion to Charles and to France, and many other such lies. This

Judas--half in the character of a layman, half in that of a confessor,

and wholly as a sympathetic friend and a fellow-sufferer--paid the

prisoner long visits, disguised both as priest and layman, as the part

suited the day's action best. Loiseleur actually used the means of

extracting information from Joan of Arc under the seal of confession,

to be afterwards employed against her by Cauchon. While these

conversations and confessions took place, Warwick and Cauchon would be

concealed in a part of the dungeon from which they could overhear what

passed between the two--one of whom worthily might be called an angel,

the other truthfully a devil. With the Bishop and knight--whose conduct

as regards Joan of Arc deeply tarnished an otherwise high

character--were seated clerks, who wrote down what passed in these

meetings. The clerks, to their credit, are said to have at first

refused to comply with doing such dirty work.

Cauchon gained but little by this infamy. Nothing of any importance

could be constructed out of the prisoner's confidence and confessions;

but Cauchon was, through Loiseleur, enabled to tender such advice to

Joan as made her answers coincide more closely with his wishes than

they otherwise could have done; especially those relating to the

Church Triumphant and Militant.

When his crime had borne fruit, Loiseleur, like another Judas, was

overwhelmed with an intolerable remorse; and, although he obtained his

victim's pardon, his end appears to have been as sudden as that of

Judas, if not also self-inflicted. By a lawyer named John Lohier, whom

he consulted during the course of the trial, Cauchon was not so well

served as he had been by Loiseleur. This Lohier, who was a Norman and

seems to have been a worthy man, had the courage to tell Cauchon that

inasmuch as Joan of Arc was being tried in secret and without benefit

of counsel, the proceedings were null and worthless. Like all who

showed any interest for the prisoner, Lohier was threatened by Cauchon

with imprisonment, but he escaped and found refuge in Rome.

On Passion Sunday, the 18th of March, Cauchon held a meeting of a

dozen of the lawyers, including the Vice-Inquisitor, and asked them to

give their opinion on some of the answers of Joan of Arc. He held a

second and similar consistory on the 22nd of that month, at which it

was decided to shape into the form of a series of articles the chief

heads of accusation. This, when made out, was to be submitted to the

prisoner. On the 24th, the Bishop, accompanied by the Vice-Inquisitor

and some others, proceeded to the dungeon in which Joan of Arc was

kept. The day was Palm Sunday, and the great French historian Michelet

has, with his accustomed skill and bright, vivid word-painting, in his

short but incomparable _Life_ of the heroine not only of France but

of humanity, reminded his readers with what a longing Joan of Arc

must, on that festival of joy and triumph, have yearned for the

privilege 'to breathe once again the fresh air of heaven.' Daughter of

the fields, born on the border of the woods, she who had always lived

under the open sky had to pass Easter Day in a dark dungeon tower. To

her the great succour which the Church invokes upon that day did not

reach--her prison door did not fly open.

It may be recalled that on Palm Sunday the morning prayer in the

office of the Roman Church contains these words: '_Deus in adjutorium

meum intende._' For her, however, no earthly gate was to be thrown

open wide. The gate through which she was to pass from suffering and

death into life eternal and peace everlasting--(_per angusta ad

augusta_)--was, however, not far distant. But she had still to wait

awhile amid the ever-darkening shadows.

'If,' said Cauchon to Joan, 'you will cease to wear this man's dress,

and dress as you would do were you back in your home, you shall be

allowed to hear Mass.'

But Joan could not be prevailed on to consent to abandon the costume,

which, as we have said, proved her safeguard against the brutality of

her jailers.

By the 26th of March the articles were drawn up and ready, and were

approved of in a meeting held by Cauchon in his own house. And on

these articles, or rather heads of articles, the further trial of the

prisoner was to be carried on.

The examination took place on the days following in a chamber next to

the great hall in the castle. Nine judges, besides Cauchon, attended.

The Bishop ordered Joan to answer categorically all the accusations on

which she was arraigned; if she refused to do so, or remained silent

beyond a given time, he threatened her with excommunication. He went

on to declare that all her judges were men of high position, well

versed in all matters appertaining to Church and State; and he had the

audacity to qualify them--and probably included himself among them--as

being _benins et pitoyables_, having no wish to inflict corporal

punishment upon Joan, but filled only with the pious desire of leading

her into the way of truth and salvation. 'Seeing that,' he continued,

'she was not sufficiently versed in such weighty matters as those they

had now to deal with, they in their pitifulness and benignity, would

allow her to choose among the learned doctors present, one or more to

aid her with counsel and advice.'

The Bishop had probably guessed that by this time Joan of Arc would

have ceased to care for the benefit of counsel, having had to do

without it till now; and his asking her whether she wished for it was

merely made in order to appear as an act of judicial indulgence on his

part--perhaps, also, what Lohier had urged regarding the illegality of

trying his prisoner without giving her the help of counsel may have

influenced him.

In a few simple words Joan of Arc thanked the Bishop and the others

for the offer, of which she, however, declined to avail herself. She

added that she felt no need now of having any human counsel, for that

she had that of her Lord to aid her.

Thomas de Courcelles next proceeded to read the articles contained in

the act of accusation. These were so long that they occupied the

remainder of that and the next day's sitting. This first series of

articles--for there were forty more to follow--consisted of thirty

heads, and forms one of the most glaring examples of what the human

mind is capable of inventing when thoroughly steeped in bigotry,

stupidity, and cruelty. The Bishop of Beauvais may have been

congratulated on producing the most momentous mass of accusation,

intended to destroy the life and reputation of a peerless and perfect

woman and to blast the career of his native sovereign: it only

redounded to the Bishop's everlasting shame and infamy.

We will spare the reader a detailed summary of these

articles--articles which have the lie so palpably and strongly writ

all over them, that we can but hesitate whether to be more surprised

or disgusted that even such a man as Cauchon could dare to bring them

into court.

The preamble of the articles gave the gist of what was to follow, and

showed up the true spirit of Joan's 'benign and merciful judges.' It

consisted of one long string of abuse, in which the terms 'sorceress,'

'false prophet,' 'a practiser of magic,' and 'devilish arts,' were

freely used. Joan of Arc was declared in this preamble to be

'abominable in the eyes of God and man'; a violator of all

laws--divine, ecclesiastical and natural. To sum up all the epithets,

she was termed 'heretical, or, at any rate, strongly suspected of

being so.' This accusation, the most awful that those cruel times

held, must have sounded to all those men present as the heroine's

knell of doom.

Then followed the thirty articles of accusation. Never, indeed, had a

short but well filled career, bright with glorious deeds, undertaken

for King and fatherland--never had such a life (for no life ever

approached that of the Maid's) been so ludicrously, so violently and

wilfully misrepresented. Her most innocent words and actions were

turned into accusations of sorcery, witchcraft, vice, and every kind

of wickedness. Her harmless and pure youth was made to appear a

childhood of sorcery and idolatrous superstition; she was accused in

her earliest years of having trafficked with evil spirits: it was

alleged that she had consorted with witches; that she had frequented

places where spirits and fairies best loved to congregate; that she

had taken part in sacrilegious dancing; that she had suspended wreaths

on the trees in honour of these rural spirits; that she had carried

hidden about her person a plant called Mandragora, hoping by it to

obtain good luck; that she had left her parents against their will to

go to Neufchâteau, and lived in that place among a debauched set of

people: that in consequence of all these wicked acts, a youth who

intended marrying her had not done so. Then, having left not a stage

or an act of her innocent girlhood unblasted, and covered with the

slime of the Bishop's reptile-like imagination, her acts when with the

King were reviewed. She had promised Charles to slay all the English

in France; her cruelty and love of bloodshed were insatiable; she had

influenced Charles by acts of magic; her banners and her rings were

bewitched; she was schismatic, and doubted as to which was the right

Pope; and, in spite of this, she had the wickedness to inform the Earl

of Armagnac which of the two Popes he was to believe the genuine. Of

all this long tissue of crimes laid to her charge, that of wearing a

man's dress was made the most heinous; for the Almighty had made it a

crime abominable to Himself, that woman should wear man's dress. Now,

not only had the prisoner committed this sin, but she had added to it

by affirming that she did so by the wish of God--she had done even

worse; for did she not refuse when at the castle of Beaurevoir to wear

woman's dress, also when at Arras, and even now in Rouen? So obstinate

was she in her wickedness that she had refused to comply with the

Bishop's wish that she should leave off these clothes, although he

had told her she would be allowed to assist at the offices of the

Church if she would consent to do so.

To all these accusations, at the end of each paragraph, Cauchon bade

Courcelles, who read the accusations, to pause, and would then ask the

prisoner what answer she had to make to that accusation. Joan of Arc

contented herself by simply denying the alleged crime, or else she

referred to the answers she had made to the same, or similar

questions, during the former days when under examination. Some of her

replies were, as they often had been during those trials, grand in

their simplicity. For instance, when asked a difficult and even

perplexing question relating to her belief in the Church Militant, she

said:--'I believe that the Holy Father, the Bishops, and other clergy,

are here for the protection of the Christian faith, and to punish

those who deserve it. As to my acts,' she continued, 'I submit them to

the Church in Heaven, to God, to the Holy Virgin, and the Saints in

Paradise. I have not failed,' she proudly added, 'in the Christian

religion; nor will I ever do so.'

When repeatedly questioned about the change of costume, and of its

importance regarding her being allowed to attend Mass or not, she

said: 'In the eyes of the Saviour the dress of those who receive the

Sacrament can have no importance.'

On the day after, the 28th of March, the same chamber was used for the

trial, and the same indictments were entered on. That almost

interminable series of accusations numbered some seventy charges. On

that day, Joan of Arc appears to have ceased to deny at any length the

string of false evidence brought against her; she generally replied

that she had already answered as to the crimes laid to her charge, or

simply said, 'I refer myself to my Saviour.' Two of her answers are

worth recording: the first, when accused of having been guilty not

only of discarding the proper dress of her sex, but also of having

acted the part of a man, she said: 'As to women's occupation there are

plenty of them to occupy themselves with such things'; and to the

second question, when taunted with having carried out her mission with

violence and slaughter, she answered: 'I implored at the commencement

of my mission that peace might be made, while, at the same time, I

declared that if that was not agreed to, I was willing to fight.' When

she was accused of having made war on the Burgundians and the English

alike, she made the distinguishing difference between them by

saying:--'As to the Duke of Burgundy, I wrote to him, and asked him

through his envoys that peace should be made between him and my King.

As regards the English, the only peace that could be made with them is

when they have returned to England.' The Maid's natural modesty and

simplicity are apparent in a circumstance which occurred in one of

those long days of searching examination and cross-questioning. When

the sentence she had used, and which had been noted down in the

minutes of an early day of the trial, was read as follows: 'All that I

have done has been done by the advice of my Saviour,' she stopped the

clerk, and said that it should stand thus: 'All that I have done well

has been done by the advice of my Saviour.' When she was asked by what

form of words she prayed to her Saints to come to her assistance, she

repeated the following prayer:--'Very blessed God, in honour of your

holy Passion, I beseech you, if you love me, that you will reveal to

me what I am to answer these Churchmen. I know concerning the dress

the reason for which I have adopted it, but I know not in what manner

I am to discard it. For this thing I beseech you to tell me what to

do.' And she added that after this prayer her voices were soon heard.

On the 31st of March, Cauchon, accompanied by the Vice-Inquisitor and

some other of the judges, had an interview with the prisoner. They

again inquired of Joan of Arc whether she submitted herself wholly and

entirely into the hands of the Church Militant. She answered that if

such were her Saviour's wish she was quite willing to do so. The

accusations were now set forth afresh, in twelve chief heads or

articles, under which the series of calumnies was summarised before

they should be submitted to the University of Paris. These twelve

heads, which formed the foundation of Joan of Arc's condemnation, were

never shown her; and she had therefore no chance of contradicting any

of the grossly false charges of which they were full. Like the trial

itself, these articles were merely a sham invented for the purpose of

throwing dust in the eyes of the people, who by these, it was hoped,

would be persuaded that the law of the Church and State had been acted

up to. The heads of these articles were as follows:--

_First_--A woman pretends to have had communication with Saints from

her thirteenth year; and she affirms that they have counselled her to

dress in male attire; she affirms that she has found her salvation,

and refuses to submit herself to the Church.

_Second_--She affirms that, through a sign, she persuaded the King to

believe in her; and that accompanied by an angel she placed a crown

upon his head.

_Third_--She affirms her companionship with Saint Michel and other

Saints.

_Fourth_--She affirms certain things will occur by the revelation

obtained by her from certain Saints.

_Fifth_--She affirms that her wearing a man's dress is done by her

through the will of God; she has sinned by receiving the Sacrament in

that garb, which she says she would sooner die than quit wearing.

_Sixth_--She admits having written letters signed with the names of

Jesus and Mary and with the sign of a cross. That, also, she admits

having threatened death to those who would not obey her; and she

affirms that all she has done has been accomplished by the Divine

will.

_Seventh_--She gives a false account of her journey to Vaucouleurs and

to Chinon.

_Eighth_--She also gives an untrue account of her attempt to kill

herself at Beaurevoir, sooner than fall into the power of the English.

_Ninth_--And also gives false statements of her assurance of

salvation, provided she remains a maid, and of never having committed

any sin.

_Tenth_--And also of her pretending that Saints Catherine and Margaret

speak to her in French, and not in English, as they do not belong to

the latter side.

_Eleventh_--She admits the adoration of her Saints; her disobedience

to her parents; and of saying that if the evil one were to appear in

the likeness of Saint Michel she would know it was not the Saint.

_Twelfth_--Admits that she refuses to submit to the Church Militant,

and this in spite of being told that all faithful members of the

Church must, by the article '_Unam Sanctam Ecclesiam Catholicam_,'

comply with and submit to the commands of the Church Militant, and

principally in all things which pertain to sacred doctrines and the

ecclesiastical sanctions.

This was the substance of the twelve articles which Cauchon laid

before the doctors of theology and law in Paris. No one knew better

than the Bishop how false these were; Manchon himself had been so

impressed with their utter fraudulence that he had inserted in their

margin, under the date of the 4th of April, the statement that in

many instances the facts alleged were entirely at variance with the

declarations of the prisoner. Cauchon despatched the articles to Paris

on the following day, April the 5th. M. Wallon, in his admirable and

exhaustive history of Joan of Arc, has remarked that all her deeds

were in these twelve articles travestied from acts of piety or

patriotism into acts of superstition and rebellion against God and His

Church. 'What,' asks M. Wallon, 'had her accusers to reproach her

with? Her visions? None of her judges could declare these were

impossible, for then they would declare themselves unbelievers in the

history of all the saints, which is full of such visions. They might

deny them if they pleased, but it required all the wilful blindness of

passion to affirm, once such things were articles of belief, that they

came from Satanic influence.' As regards Joan of Arc's costume, she

had on several occasions answered with sufficient clearness, and every

person might have made a like answer, that there is no hard and fast

law laid down by the Church relating to the costume that may be worn

by members of the Church. Nay more, it was notorious that one of the

female saints of the Church (Sainte Marine) had always worn a man's

dress. The question as to her dress had been gone into thoroughly

during Joan of Arc's examination by the Churchmen and laymen at

Poitiers; that which the Church had not blamed at Poitiers could not

therefore be a sin in Rouen. By the same token, how was it possible

for Joan to believe that what had not been disapproved of by the

Archbishop at Rheims should be considered a criminal offence by the

Bishop of Beauvais? As regards the question of her submission to the

Church, Joan of Arc replied, when asked if she would submit to its

will, in these words: 'You speak to me of the "Church Militant" and of

the "Church Triumphant." I do not understand the signification of

those terms; but I wish to submit myself to the Church as all good

Christians should do.' What more could be required of her than this

entire submission to the Church? She had made that answer to the

doctors and clergy at Poitiers, and it had entirely satisfied those

men. What Joan of Arc had a clear right not to do was to submit

herself to her arch-enemy the Bishop of Beauvais. When she asked what

Cauchon and his judges called the 'Church Militant,' she was told it

consisted of the Pope and the prelates below him. She thereupon

exclaimed she would willingly appear before him, but that she would

not submit to the judgment of her enemies, and particularly not to

Cauchon. 'In saying this,' adds M. Wallon, 'she displayed her usual

courageous spirit. How eagerly had she,' he remarks (when told that if

she would submit herself to the Council then sitting at Bâle, where

she would find some judges of her party among the English), 'appealed

to be allowed to bring her case before that Council; and it will be

remembered how Cauchon cursed the lawyer who had brought forward the

suggestion during the trial.' On that occasion escaped from the

prisoner's lips the cry which showed how well she knew the

unscrupulousness of her judges. On learning that her wish to appeal to

the Council of Bâle by Cauchon's order was not to appear in that day's

report of the trial, she said, 'You write down what is against me, but

you will not write what is favourable to me.' Along with the twelve

articles, Cauchon enclosed a letter to the lawyers in Paris asking for

their opinion on what he calls the facts submitted to them, 'whether

they do not appear to be contrary to the orthodox faith, to the

Scriptures, and to the Church of Rome, and whether the learned members

of the Church and doctors do not consider such things as stated in

these articles as scandalous, dangerous to civil order, injurious and

adverse to public morals.' In every way Cauchon's letter was worthy of

its author.

On the 12th of April a meeting under the presidency of Erard Emenyart,

consisting of a score of lawyers and clergy, was held in the chapel of

the archiepiscopal palace. At this meeting, with scarcely a

dissentient voice, it was voted that Joan of Arc had by her deeds and

her expressed opinions proved herself schismatical and strongly

tainted with heresy. A second meeting took place in the same building

on the following day, attended by some more Church functionaries. Some

of these suggested that the prisoner should be promptly handed over

to the secular arm--if she refuses still to renounce her errors--and

if she acknowledges them, her fate will then be to be imprisoned for

life, and given for nourishment 'the bread of sorrows and the water of

anguish.' Eleven advocates--all belonging to Rouen--however, added the

following clause, that the latter should be her punishment, 'provided

that her revelations do not come from God.' But with the fear of

Cauchon before them, they added to this clause that the revelations

coming from such a source seems hardly probable, and they appeal to

the bachelors in theology to set them right on that head. The Bishop

of Lisieux, who had already given as his reason for not believing that

Joan of Arc's mission could be Heaven-inspired the fact of the low

station from which she came, now repeated the same absurdity on this

occasion. There were others who preferred delaying their verdict until

the decision arrived at by the University of Paris had been made

known. A number of the Churchmen belonging to the Chapter of the

Cathedral of Rouen hesitated, divided between two opinions, for and

against the Maid, and of these only twenty put in an appearance when

summoned by Cauchon to meet on the 13th of April. They were threatened

and bullied by the Bishop to come in stronger numbers on the next day,

when they attended to the number of thirty-one, but could not be

prevailed on to give a definite opinion until the answer arrived from

the University--which ultimatum Cauchon had to take with as much grace

as he could. While these things were taking place, Joan of Arc fell

ill--worn out probably by her long and harsh imprisonment, by the

mental as well as physical torment she must have undergone during

those weeks of cross-questioning and endless browbeating. Her jailers

were more alarmed about her condition than she was herself, for were

she to die a natural death, half the moral effect her enemies counted

on obtaining by giving her the death of a sorceress and heretic would

be lost. Doctors were sent for--sent by the Cardinal of Winchester and

Warwick. When asked what ailed her she said that her illness had

commenced after eating a fish that had been sent her by the Bishop of

Beauvais. Warwick is said to have had the brutality to tell the

doctors that her life must be saved at all hazards, for she had to die

by the hands of the executioners. The doctors ordered her to be bled,

and her naturally strong constitution soon restored her to health.

During the days of the weakness following her illness, Cauchon,

thinking probably that more might be then wrung from her than when

well, came to see her. This was on the 18th of April. He went to the

dungeon accompanied by the Vice-Inquisitor and half-a-dozen judges,

and the following charitable exhortation, as the chronicler styles it,

took place.

'We have come,' began Cauchon, 'to you with charitable and amiable

intentions, to console you in your sickness. You will remember, Joan,

how you have been questioned on various matters relating to the faith,

and you know the answers you made. Knowing your ignorance relating to

such matters, we are willing to send learned and well-versed men in

such matters.' Then turning to the lawyers and others present, the

Bishop continued: 'We exhort you to give Joan profitable counsel on

the obligations which appertain to the true doctrine of the faith, and

to the furtherance of the safety and welfare of her body and soul.

'Joan,' continued Cauchon, 'if there be any one else you wish to

consult in this matter, we are ready to send for such in order that

they may aid you. We are men of the Church, ever ready to aid those in

need of advice good for the soul as well as the body, and ready to

benefit you or any of your own kith, or ourselves. We should gladly

give you daily such to advise you. In a word, we are ready, under the

circumstances, to aid you, as does the Church itself, ever ready to

help all such who will willingly come to her. But beware to act

against our advice and exhortation. For if you still should refuse to

submit yourself to us, we shall abandon you. Judge then of the peril

you lie in in that case. It is this peril which we hope to prevent you

from falling into with all our strength and all our affection.'

To this Mephistophelean address Joan of Arc made the following reply:

'I render you my best thanks for what you have said respecting the

salvation of my soul; and it seems to me, seeing the illness I am now

suffering, that I am in danger of dying. If this is to happen, God's

will be done. I will only ask you to allow me to confess, and to

partake of the Blessed Sacrament, and that my body may be laid in holy

ground.'

Cauchon replied as follows: 'If you wish to receive the Sacraments of

the Church you must confess yourself like a good Catholic, and you

must also submit yourself to the Church. If you persevere in not doing

so, you cannot obtain what you desire, except that for Penitence,

which we are always ready to administer.'

Joan wearily said to this: 'I have then nothing more to say.'

The Bishop, however, had no wish that the interview should end thus,

and continued: 'The greater your danger of now dying is, the greater

reason have you to amend your life; if you do not submit yourself to

the Church, then you will not obtain the privilege of a Catholic to

its Sacraments.'

To this she answered: 'If I die here in prison, I trust my body will

be placed in consecrated earth. If you refuse me this favour, I can

but appeal to my Saviour!'

'You said,' quoth Cauchon, 'during the trial that if you had done or

said anything that was against our Christian faith you could not

support it!'

'I refer myself,' said Joan, 'to the answer I then made, and to our

Lord!'

'You said,' continued the Bishop, 'that you had received many

revelations both from God and from the saints. Suppose, then, that now

some worthy person were to appear, declaring that they had received a

revelation from God about your deeds, would you believe that person?'

To this the prisoner replied: 'There is not a Christian on earth, who,

coming to me and saying that he came by such revelation, I should not

know whether to believe or not, for I should know whether he were true

or false by Saint Catherine and Saint Margaret.'

'But,' said Cauchon, 'do you imagine then that God is not able to

reveal to some one besides yourself things that you may be ignorant

about?'

Joan answered: 'Without a sign, I should not believe man or woman.'

Then Cauchon asked Joan if she believed in the holy Scriptures?

'You know that I do,' she answered.

Then the Bishop again returned to the question whether or not the

prisoner consented to submit herself to the Church Militant, by which

the Church Temporal should be understood.

Now, as before, Joan of Arc's answer was unchanged.

'Whatever,' she said, 'may happen to me, I shall neither do nor say

anything further than that I have already declared during the trial.'

In vain all the venerable doctors present exhorted the prisoner to

make her submission; they quoted Scripture, chapter and verse, to her

(Matt. xviii.), without obtaining any more success than the Bishop had

done.

As they were leaving the prison one of these 'venerable doctors'

hissed to Joan: 'If you refuse to submit to the Church, the Church

will abandon you as if you were a Saracen.'

To this Joan of Arc replied: 'I am a good Christian--a Christian born

and baptized--and a Christian I shall die.'

Before Cauchon left his victim he made one further attempt to obtain a

decided answer from Joan of Arc, this time making use of a bait which

he thought must catch her--namely, permission to receive the

Communion: 'As,' he said, 'you desire the Eucharist, will you, if you

are allowed to do so, submit yourself to the Church?'

To this offer Joan answered: 'As to that submission I can give no

other answer than that I have already given you. I love God; Him I

serve, as a good Christian should. Were I able I would help the Church

with all my strength.'

'But,' said Cauchon, 'if we were to order a grand procession to

restore your health, then would you not submit yourself?'

'I only request,' she answered, 'that the Church and all good

Catholics will pray for me.'

Some of the judges had suggested that, in a more public place than in

her prison, Joan of Arc should be again admonished relating to the

crimes of which she was accused; and Cauchon accordingly summoned a

public meeting of the judges for the 2nd of May, to be held in a

chamber near the Great Hall.

On that day sixty-two judges were present. Cauchon took care that the

actual charges contained in the twelve articles which had been sent to

the University should not be read in the presence of the prisoner, and

told her that she had only been summoned in order to receive another

admonition before a larger assemblage than had as yet met.

In his opening allocution he told his audience that the private

admonition had been unattended with good results, that Joan had

refused to submit herself to the Church, and that he had accordingly

invited to the present meeting a learned doctor of theology, namely,

John de Chatillon, archdeacon of Evreux, whose eloquence he doubted

not would have a beneficial effect upon the stubbornness of the

prisoner.

On Joan being led into the room, the Bishop admonished her to listen

to what Chatillon would now lay before her, and to agree to what he

would advise. If she would not do so, he added, she would place

herself in jeopardy, both as to her body and as to her soul.

Chatillon then took up his parable, which was to the effect that all

faithful Christians must conform to the tenets of the Church; and that

he trusted she would do so to all that the doctors lay and spiritual

there present expected her.

The Archdeacon held a digest of his sermon in his hand. Seeing this,

Joan of Arc requested him to read his book, after which, she said, she

would make her answer.

The speech, or sermon, that he then delivered was an exhaustive

examination of the twelve articles, brought under six heads, but much

altered and garbled.

In the first place, he admonished her of not having given a full

account of her apparitions to the Church through her judges; secondly,

he told her of her culpability in insisting on retaining her male

attire; thirdly, of her wickedness in asserting that she committed no

crime in retaining that dress; fourthly, her sin in holding as true

revelations that could only lead the people into error; fifthly, that

she had, owing to these revelations, done deeds displeasing to the

Divine will; and lastly, that she was committing a sin in treating the

apparitions as holy, when she was not certain whether they did not

come from evil spirits. When Chatillon said that by not conforming to

the article '_Sanctam Ecclesiam_,' she placed herself in the power of

the Church to condemn her to the flames, and to be burnt as a heretic,

she answered boldly:

'I will not say aught else than that I have already spoken; and were I

even to see the fire I should say the same!'

After this answer in the minutes of that day's trial is written by the

clerk in the margin of the vellum:

'_Superba responsio!_'

That was a testimony of admiration which neither the fears of

persecution nor of superstition could prevent from appearing.

Nothing more was to be obtained from the prisoner's lips than this

declaration, either by private or public examinations. This being so,

Cauchon bethought him what further cruelty could be employed to force

the prisoner to give way, and the barbarous scheme of torture was

decided on.

The only portion of the old castle of Rouen that has survived Time,

war, revolutions, and rebuilding (although partially restored), is a

massive high tower, built of white stone, called the Tower of Joan of

Arc. This is not the tower of the castle which contained the heroine's

dungeon, but it has always been traditionally regarded as that in

which, on the 9th of May, Joan of Arc was led to where her judges

intended, by fear or by the infliction of bodily torment, to oblige

her to make the confession which she had so steadily and for so long a

time refused. The lower portion of this tower only is ancient, for

from about its centre to the top is a restoration.

The chamber to which Joan of Arc was led, and where the instruments of

torture and the executioners were waiting, is probably that on the

ground floor, and is but little changed from what it was on that May

morning in the year of grace 1431.

In that dark stone chamber with its groined roof, besides the

prisoner, were present Cauchon, with the Vice-Inquisitor, the Abbot

of Saint Corneille of Compiègne, William Erard, Andrew Marguerie,

Nicolas de Venderès, John Massieu, William Haiton, Aubert Morel, and

the infamous Loiseleur. Ranged round the circular walls were placed

the instruments of torture, and men skilled in their use were ready at

hand.

'Joan,' said Cauchon, who had now dropped his hypocritical semblance

of sympathy, which he had assumed when interrogating the prisoner in

her cell, 'I command you to tell the truth. In your examination many

and various points have been touched on, about which you refused to

answer, or, when you did so, answered untruthfully. Of this we have

certain proof. These points will now be read to you.'

What was then read was probably a summary of the articles of

impeachment.

Cauchon then continued: 'If, Joan, you now refuse to speak the truth,

you will be put to the torture. You see before you the instruments

which are prepared, and by them stand the executioners, who are ready

to do their office at our command. You will be tortured in order that

you may be led into the way of truth, and for the salvation of your

body and soul, which you by your lies have exposed to so great a

peril.'

It was at this terrible juncture that Joan showed her indomitable

spirit more clearly than at any moment since her capture. In front of

her lay the rack upon which, at a signal from Cauchon, her limbs would

be wrenched asunder; but her reply, as given in the minutes written

by the clerk who was present, bears the ring of a courage superior to

all the terrors which confronted her.

'Even,' she said, 'if you tear me limb from limb, and even if you kill

me, I will not tell you anything further. And even were I forced to do

so, I should afterwards declare that it was only because of the

torture that I had spoken differently.'

That was an answer which sums up the whole folly and crime of

obtaining evidence by means of torture, and recalls Galileo's famous

phrase when in a somewhat similar situation.

Cauchon then again ordered Joan to tell them of her revelations, and

asked her if she had again sought counsel from her voices.

She had, answered Joan.

'And have they,' asked the Bishop, 'foretold what will now happen?'

'I asked them,' answered Joan of Arc, 'if I should be burnt, and they

answered: "Abide by your Lord and He will aid you."'

There is little more than the above recorded of what took place, but

it is probable that Joan, who had as yet hardly recovered from her

illness, was, from fear of her dying under the torture, not subjected

to it. At any rate, that additional horror was not to be laid on the

consciences of the already heavily burthened judges of the Maid.

It appears, however, that these men had not altogether given up the

idea of carrying out this barbarity, so congenial to such a man as

Cauchon and to his friend the Inquisitor; for a meeting was summoned

by Cauchon at his house three days after Joan had been brought face to

face with the torture apparatus, at which the question was discussed

as to whether it should not after all be used.

Thirteen judges met the Bishop and the Inquisitor to discuss the

question. Of these the following were against applying torture:

Maîtres Roussel, Venderès, Marguerie, Erard, Barbier, Gastinel,

Coppequesne, Ledoux, De la Pierre, Haiton, and Lemaîstre. One of

these, Erard, remarked that it was unnecessary to torture the prisoner

seeing that, as he expressed it, 'they had already sufficient evidence

to condemn her to death without putting her to torment.' But Morel de

Courcelles, and Loiseleur were in favour that it should be made use

of. Surely the names of these men deserve to be held in execration,

and placed by the side of Cauchon's in the historic pillory of

everlasting infamy.

[Illustration: St. OUEN--ROUEN.]

Meanwhile the University of Paris were deliberating upon their answer

to the twelve articles. This body met on the 29th of April, within the

convent of Saint Bernard. The ancient building, in which the

University held many notable conclaves when even Popes were judged by

the doctors of Paris, still exists, but it has been transformed into

an oil warehouse. John de Troyes, senior of the Faculty of Theology,

was the spokesman, and read the decisions of the faculty on each

of the twelve articles. It is unnecessary to go through the long

verbiage of abuse and blasphemy with which these theologians thought

it their duty to bespatter Joan of Arc.

On every head these reverend seigneurs condemned her. After De Troyes

had finished his reading of the opinions and the judgment, Guérold de

Boissel read the deliberations of the Faculty of Decrees upon the six

points of accusation. 'If this woman,' so ran the rede, 'was in her

right mind when she made affirmation of the propositions contained in

the twelve articles, one may say in the manner of counsel and of

doctrine, and to speak charitably, first, that she is schismatic in

separating herself from obedience to the Church; secondly, that she is

out of the pale of the law in contradicting the article "_Unam Sanctam

Ecclesiam Catholicam_"; thirdly, apostate, for having cut short her

hair, which was given her by God to hide her head with, and also in

having abandoned the dress of a woman for that of a man; fourthly,

vicious and a soothsayer, for saying, without showing miracles, that

she is sent by God, as was Moses and John the Baptist; fifthly, rebel

to the faith, by remaining under the anathema framed by the canons of

the Church, and by not receiving the Sacraments of the Church at the

season set apart by the Church, in order not to have to cease wearing

the dress of a man; and, sixthly, blasphemous in saying that she

knows she will be received into Paradise. Therefore, if after being

charitably warned she refuses to re-enter the Catholic faith, and

thereby give satisfaction, she shall be given over to the secular

judges, and meet with the punishment due to her crimes.'

And the University of Paris in solemn conclave ratified the above

judgment. The University also sent Cauchon a letter of commendation,

in which he was held up to the general admiration as a faithful

pastor, zealous in good works, on whom the University trusted that the

Almighty would, on the day of His manifestation, bestow an

imperishable crown of glory.

Such were the sentiments of the most erudite, most pious, and most

eminent school of learning existing in the capital of France. On the

19th of May Cauchon summoned yet another gathering of Joan's judges in

the archiepiscopal palace at Rouen. Fifty of them attended. After some

discussion, during which a few of the learned men present expressed

their opinion that Joan of Arc should be at once handed over to the

secular arm, it was decided that the prisoner should again be brought

before them to be what they were pleased to call 'charitably

admonished.' Accordingly, four days after, on the 23rd of May, in a

chamber near Joan of Arc's dungeon, another meeting was held. On this

occasion a canon of Rouen, named Peter Morice, was ordered to question

the prisoner.

He commenced by delivering a long lecture, in which he recapitulated

the twelve articles, and wound up his oration by imploring Joan to

submit herself to the Church Militant, and threatening her with the

loss of body and soul in this world and the next if she still refused

to do so.

Joan of Arc was as unmoved and as firm when thus threatened as she had

been when placed before the instruments of torture, and she replied:--

'If I were to see the fire itself, the stake, and the executioner

ready to light the pile, and were I in the midst of the flames, I

should not say anything else than what I have already spoken during

the trial, and this is my determination, even unto my death!'

There is some probability for believing that, during the following

evening after this last meeting of Joan of Arc and her judges,

Loiseleur gained admittance to the prisoner, and, under the disguise

of a friendly and sympathetic priest, promised Joan that if she would

conform to the wishes of the judges, she should be taken out of the

prison she now lay in and the custody of the English, and transferred

to prisons belonging to the Church.

Poor Joan's chief desire was that she might be set free from the hands

of the English. Be this as it may, there is no authority given for

this idea of Loiseleur having probed her on this point; and Wallon, in

his history of the Maid, makes no allusion to such an interview, and

only states that John Beaupère went in the morning of the 24th to the

prison, and he was soon followed there by Nicolas Loiseleur, who

vehemently urged on Joan to comply with the demands which the judges

had made.

Nothing had been neglected to give the greatest solemnity to the cruel

farce which Cauchon had prepared to be now enacted--a solemnity by

which the Bishop hoped to degrade Joan of Arc in the eyes of the

people. It was that of obliging the prisoner to make a public apology

and recantation of all her deeds--a declaration in fact to be made by

her in the eyes of the whole world that all she had undertaken and

accomplished had been through and by the aid of evil spirits.

By this stroke the Bishop hoped to show to France that its heroine,

instead of being a sainted and holy maid sent by God to deliver her

country from the invader, was, by her own open and public confession,

proved to be an emanation from Satan--a being abhorrent in the eyes of

God and man. By this device, Cauchon hoped also to deal a blow to

Charles, for when once it became known that his servant and saviour

was a creature in league with the fiends, all the works done through

her influence, and by her prowess, including his coronation, would

also be proved to have been accomplished by the powers of darkness,

and therefore deeds abhorrent to all good Catholics throughout his

realm.

The place chosen for the stage on which Joan of Arc was to abjure

before the eyes of Rouen--and through Rouen the rest of France--her

deeds and her words, was the cemetery in front of that most beautiful

of all Gothic fanes--the Church of Saint Ouen.

Adjacent to its southern wall the exquisitely carved portal named the

Marmousets, then as now rich in statuary of royal and imperial

benefactors of the Church, looks down upon what is the entrance to a

fair public garden. In the fifteenth century this space was used as a

place of burial.

Here, arranged with a view to dramatic effect, were placed two huge

wooden scaffolds, or rather platforms, which faced one another. Upon

one of these sat the Bishop of Beauvais in state. He had on his right

hand the Prince Cardinal of Winchester, great-uncle of the child-king

Henry VI., with other notabilities of the Church; the Bishops of

Norwich, of Noyon, and of Thérouenne; the Vice-Inquisitor, eight

abbots, and a large number of friars and doctors, clerical and lay--in

fact all those who had attended the trials of the Maid of Orleans

during the two preceding months. Upon the opposite platform stood Joan

of Arc, a crowd of lawyers and priests about her. Here, too, stood

Loiseleur close by the prisoner; he never ceased urging her to conform

to the commands of the clergy about her.

A vast throng of the town's-people gathered below, and the place was

all in a turmoil. A seething mob had followed the Maid from her prison

to the cemetery, which, already full, now held with difficulty the

fresh press of people who accompanied Joan of Arc and her guards to

the purlieus of the Church of Saint Ouen.

William Erard had been appointed by Cauchon to preach in this

'terrible comedy,' as Michelet calls this farce of the Maid's

abjuration. For text the monk selected the fifteenth chapter of Saint

John's gospel: 'The branch,' etc. Erard showed in his discourse how

Joan had fallen from one sin into another, till she had at length

separated herself from the Church. To a long string of abuse about

herself Joan of Arc listened with perfect patience; but the preacher,

not content with hurling his invectives at the prisoner, began to

attack her King for having listened to Joan's advice, by which conduct

the King had, Erard said, also incurred the crime of heresy.

This attack on Charles roused the indignation of the Maid. Turning on

the monk, without a moment's thought of her own situation, and the

fresh danger she exposed herself to, the noble girl exclaimed: 'By my

faith, and with all respect to you, I dare to affirm on my peril that

the King of this realm is the noblest of Christians, and no one has

greater love for the Faith and Church than my King!'

'Silence her!' shrieked the preacher, beside himself with rage at

finding that these few words from the lips of Joan of Arc had

destroyed all the effect of his eloquence on that vast crowd, whose

sympathy must have been now strongly shown towards the glorious victim

before them.

Again summoned to submit to the Church, Joan said: 'I have answered on

that point already to my judges. I call upon them to send an account

of all my actions to the Holy Father at Rome, to whom after God I

submit myself.'

This was not what Cauchon wished his victim to express, for one of the

charges that he had made against her was her refusal to submit to the

Pope. He therefore changed the subject, and asked Joan of Arc whether

she acknowledged that there were any things evil among those deeds she

had committed or said.

'As to my deeds and sayings,' she answered, 'I have done them by the

command of God.'

'Then you admit,' said the Bishop, 'that the King and others have

sometimes urged you to act as you have done?'

'As to my words and actions,' she answered, 'I make no one, and

particularly not the King, responsible. If any wrong has been

committed, it is I who am to blame, and not another.'

'But,' said Cauchon, 'those acts and words of yours which have been

found evil by the judges, will you recant them?'

'I submit them,' said Joan, 'to God and our Holy Father the Pope.'

'The bishops,' continued Cauchon, 'are the judges in their dioceses,

therefore you must submit to the Church as your judges have determined

that you shall do.'

Joan still refused, and the Bishop then began to read the sentence

condemning her to death as a heretic.

Now arose a great uproar among the clergy and others on the platforms

and among the crowd beneath. Loiseleur and Massieu urged her to

abjure; the former promising that if she consented she would, after

abjuring, be taken from her English jailers and placed in keeping of

the clergy. In the midst of the hubbub Erard produced a parchment

scroll, on which, he told Joan, were written the different accusations

against her, which she had only to sign with her mark to be saved. All

about this abjuration was a mesh of confusion to the mind of Joan.

Massieu told her she need but make a mark on the parchment before her

to be delivered: if not--and he pointed down to a grim figure near the

foot of the stage they were on, where stood the headsman with cart and

assistants, ready to draw her to the stake.

'Abjure!' cried Erard and Massieu, 'or you will be taken and burnt.'

Even Joan of Arc's courage failed at that sight, and all the woman in

her nature asserted itself.

'Do what I tell you,' cried Loiseleur; 'abjure and put on woman's

dress, and all will yet be well.'

The text of the abjuration was then hurriedly read, Joan of Arc

following it, and repeating the words, the sense of which she had no

time to understand. She spoke the words, it is said, as one in a

dream. Some said she did this mockingly, for she was observed to

smile once or twice; but the poor soul's spirit was crushed, and

doubtless the whole scene was to her like an evil dream--the poor

broken-down body could not discriminate what words she was forced to

repeat. A troubled, horrible dream must that have seemed to the

hapless maiden, standing on that scaffold, with all the shouting mob

about, and all her deadly enemies at hand. She made her mark on the

parchment--a little cross--and the deed was done.

In the recantation, or abjuration, thus obtained from Joan of Arc, the

twelve articles were included, with all their abuse set down. Thus was

Joan obliged by her signature to declare that all her visions and

voices were false and from evil spirits; also that she had been guilty

of transgressing laws divine in having worn her hair cut short and the

dress of a man; also in having caused bloodshed; also in having

idolatrously invoked evil spirits; also in having treated God and His

sacraments with contempt; and, besides all this, of having acted

schismatically, and of having fallen foul of the Church: all of which

crimes and errors she now abjured, and humbly submitted herself to the

will of the Church and its ordinances. She promised with her

abjuration not to relapse, and called on Saint Peter, the Pope, as

well as the Bishop of Beauvais and other of her judges, to keep her

word.

Not content with having inveigled Joan of Arc into signing this

farrago of blasphemous nonsense, her judges, it seems, added fraud to

their crime by reading to the prisoner a different recantation from

that to which they had forced her to sign her mark. The one she marked

contained only six lines, and it did not take longer to read these few

lines, an eye-witness afterwards asserted, than it does to repeat the

'Paternoster'; whereas the one produced after the ceremony of the

abjuration filled several sides. But in an act of such infamy as this

of having cheated Joan of Arc not only into signing a recantation of

her life-work, but of confessing to her existence having been one long

series of superstitious and criminal workings with the spirits of

evil, it matters very little whether she signed a longer or a shorter

list of falsehoods invented by her persecuting judges.

While these things were taking place upon the platform on which Joan

was bullied into signing this abjuration, the English and their

faction in the crowd below began to fear that their victim would

escape them; they had not grasped the astuteness of the French

prelate, who was ready to hand his prisoner over to them directly he

had obtained this recantation from her hand. Cauchon was, however,

obliged to keep them waiting until he had got that by which he hoped

to destroy Joan of Arc's fame, and at the same time, and by the same

deed, to retain in his possession a formidable weapon by which he

thought to weaken the cause of the French monarch.

Cauchon may well have felt on that afternoon that what he had done for

the English cause merited as his reward the coveted archbishopric of

Rouen. There remained but one further act for him to play in this

drama before he quitted his platform. Rising from among his brother

bishops he read a list of the crimes committed by the prisoner, and

announced that, as Joan had now, owing to her abjuration of her sins,

re-entered into the fold of the Church, she was absolved by him from

her excommunication. However, he added, as she had sinned so

grievously against God and the Church, he, for the sake of her soul's

welfare, condemned her to perpetual imprisonment--'to the water of

sorrow, and the bread of anguish,' so that she might repent of her

faults, and cease ever to commit any more.

Then, in spite of the promises made to her of being placed in the

charge of the clergy, Cauchon ordered that Joan should be taken back

to her former prison.

Warwick is said to have displayed anger at this termination of the

proceedings. Observing this, one of the judges pacified him by

assuring him that Joan should not be allowed to escape her fate: 'Do

not fear, my lord,' he said; 'you will catch her yet.'

That evening the Vice-Inquisitor, accompanied by Loiseleur, Thomas de

Courcelles, Isambard de la Pierre, and a few other of the judges who

had taken part in the proceedings that day at Saint Ouen, visited the

prisoner. Their object in going to her was to insist upon her changing

her man's dress, with which demand she now had to comply. That

occurred on Thursday night, and on the Sunday following a rumour was

spread abroad that Joan of Arc had discarded the woman's dress, and

had again put on male dress.

Although, during the last days of the heroine's life, it is most

difficult to gather anything authentic as to her treatment in the

prison, we are led to understand, by the least untrustworthy

testimony, that what happened in the interval between Thursday night

and the following Sunday was as follows.

The soldiers placed in charge of Joan after her recantation and her

return to the prison had rendered her existence a long martyrdom; and

there is reason to believe that on her discarding her man's dress

these ruffians attempted to violate the prisoner: so, sooner than

suffer this, although she knew that to return to her former dress

would be equivalent to meeting certain death, she did not hesitate to

save her maidenhood at the exposure of her life.

Michelet, in his history of the Maid, quotes from the deposition of

one of the officials--Massieu, who saw much of Joan of Arc in those

last days--the statement that on the morning of Trinity Sunday, on

waking, she asked the soldiers to leave her alone for a few moments

while she dressed; that one of the men removed her woman's clothes,

and in place substituted the dress of a man; and that, in order not

to be naked, she was obliged to put on the latter.

Be this as it may, on the following morning, Cauchon, followed by

several of his creatures, returned to the prison, in order that he

might see and show to others that his victim had been entrapped at

last. 'We have come,' he said to the prisoner, 'to find out the state

of your soul, and we find you, in despite of our command, and despite

of your promise to renounce this man's dress, again thus attired. Tell

us the reason why you have dared again to wear these clothes.'

Joan's answer was that she preferred that dress to the other, and

that, being placed among men, it was better that she should wear it

than the dress of a woman. Although not placed in the judicial record

of this interview, Manchon adds in his account of the proceedings on

that day, that Joan of Arc also said that she had returned to wearing

her male attire, feeling safer when in that dress than when she was

dressed in woman's clothes. This seems to us an evident avowal that

she had to resist the brutality of the men placed over her in the

dungeon. Massieu also adds to Manchon's testimony that he knew Joan

was unable to protect herself against attempts made to violate her.

Her legs were chained to the wood with which her pallet bed was

framed, and this chain was again fixed to a large beam about six feet

long, and locked with a padlock; so that the poor creature could

hardly move. To the above testimony of these two men, Isambard de la

Pierre adds his. He states that when Cauchon came to the Maid's

dungeon she bore all the traces of having undergone a violent

struggle, 'being all in tears, and so bruised and outraged

(_outrageé_) that he (Isambard) could not help feeling pity for her.'

But the strongest testimony of all is that of the priest, Martin

Ladvenu, who heard her confession on the eve of her death, and he

confirms Isambard's statement entirely. He even adds that not only had

Joan of Arc to suffer from the brutality of the soldiery placed about

her, but that a _millourt d'Angleterre_ had acted as shamefully as

these men towards her.

Although Michelet and other French writers have naturally not allowed

this 'Millourt' (which, by the way, is quite as correct a form of

spelling that title as the better known 'Milor') to escape the

branding he deserves for his attempted villainy, it is but fair to add

that Isambard de la Pierre, as well as Manchon, qualify his conduct as

that not of a would-be violator, but of a tempter--a not

inconsiderable difference in the scale of infamy.

To return to Cauchon and Joan of Arc.

'But,' said the Bishop, 'are you not aware you have now no right to

wear such a dress?'

Joan answered that she had been misled into believing that if she wore

the woman's dress she would be allowed to hear Mass and to

communicate, and to be, she added, 'delivered from these chains.'

'But,' replied Cauchon, 'have you not abjured, and promised never to

take to wearing this dress again?'

'I would prefer to die,' she answered, 'than to remain on a prisoner

here. But if I were allowed to go to the Mass, and these chains were

taken off me, and if I was placed in some other prison where some

woman could be near me, then I should do all that is required of me by

the Church.'

In all Joan of Arc's answers it should be noticed that she never, in

spite of the terrible sufferings she endured, and the gross

barbarities inflicted on her, in any single instance ever made any

complaint of her treatment. There is something superhuman in this

utter absence of any shade of vindictiveness, when one thinks that, by

a few words, she might have saved herself from much of what she had to

suffer. Never once did she blame even those who had deceived,

insulted, and ill-treated her; her life was one beautiful example,

full of divine charity and forgiveness.

Cauchon, to make doubly sure of completing his work, then asked Joan:

'Have you, since last Thursday, heard the voices of Saint Catherine

and Saint Margaret?'

'Yes,' she answered.

'And,' continued the Bishop, 'what did they say?'

'They told me of the great sorrow they felt for the great treason to

which I have been led, by my abjuring and revoking my deeds in order

to save my life, and that by so doing I have lost my soul.'

On the margin of the original document of the MSS. of this

examination, written in the prison, the original of which is in the

National Library in Paris, we find alongside of this answer of Joan of

Arc's the following words: '_Responsio mortifera_.' Indeed it was an

answer of deadliest import; for Joan in asserting that her voices had

again spoken to her, and in saying that she had committed a mortal sin

by recanting her deeds, had thrown away the only plank of safety left

her.

It seems to us evident, however, that Joan of Arc was now quite eager

and willing to meet the worst that her enemies could inflict upon her:

death itself must now have seemed more tolerable than the daily death

she was undergoing in her prison.

'Did your voices urge you to resist giving way about the recantation?'

questioned the Bishop.

'My voices,' Joan said, 'told me as I stood on the platform before the

people that I should answer the preacher with boldness.'

'Did he not,' said Cauchon, 'speak the truth?'

'No,' she answered, 'he was a false preacher; and he accused me of

having done things which I never did.'

'But,' then said Cauchon, 'do you mean to tell us that you still

persist in saying that you have been sent by God?'

To which Joan replied that that was still her belief.

'Then,' continued the Bishop, 'you deny that to which you swore on

oath only last Thursday?'

'My voices,' said Joan, 'have told me since then that I had committed

a bad deed in saying that I had not done the things which I have

done!'

'Then,' continued the Bishop, with eagerness, 'you retract your

abjuration?'

'It was,' said Joan of Arc, 'from the fear of being burnt that I

retracted what I had done; but I never intended to deny or revoke my

voices.'

'But then,' said Cauchon, 'are you now no longer afraid of being

burnt?'

'I had rather die than endure any longer what I have now to undergo.'

And with these broken-hearted words of the sufferer ended this long

mockery of a trial, so patiently endured during three weariful months

by the martyr Maid.

On quitting the prison, Cauchon met Lord Warwick among some Englishmen

in the outer court of the castle. They were clamouring that the

execution of Joan of Arc should be soon carried out. The Bishop

accosted the Earl with a smile of triumph, and said to him in

English:--

'You can dine now with a good appetite. We have caught her at last!'