Exhausted by this last effort, Joan Darc falls back upon her seat in the midst of profound silence. The ecclesiastics gather in a group with Bishop Cauchon in the center. They consult in a low voice. The prelate then approaches Joan Darc.
Bishop Cauchon (in a ringing voice and a gesture of malediction)—"The sentence is pronounced: We, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by the grace of God, pronounce you a blasphemer and sacrilegious woman, an invoker of demons, an apostate and a heretic! We smite you with the sentence of the major and minor excommunication; we pronounce you forever cut off from the body of our holy mother the Church; and we leave you to the secular arm which will to-morrow burn your body and cast your ashes to the wind! Amen."
All the Ecclesiastical Judges (in chorus and making the sign of the cross)—"Amen."
Joan Darc (sublimely inspired)—"That is your judgment. I confidently await the judgment of God!"
The jailers carry the prisoner back to her cell.
On the 24th of May, 1431, a great mass of people is crowding at about eight in the morning and under a brilliant springtide sun towards the cemetery of St. Audoin at Rouen. A low wall surrounds the place of burial. Within, and near the entrance of the cemetery, there rises on this morning a high scaffold with a wide platform on which a number of seats decked with violet coverings are placed. English soldiers, casqued and cuirassed, and lance in hand, form a cordon that keeps the crowd at a distance. All seem to expect a great event.
The people are waiting to see Joan Darc, who is to mount the scaffold, kneel down at the feet of Bishop Cauchon and with her arms crossed on her breast abjure her past errors, deny her visions and renounce her revelations, her faith, her glory and her patriotism; in short, to make her humble, contrite and repentful submission to the sovereign judgment of the Bishop and the ecclesiastics.
Only yesterday, despite the feebleness of her body, so proud and so resolute in her answers to her accusers, Joan had cried: "Let the fagots be there, let the executioner stand ready, and yet I shall repeat unto death: Yes, God has inspired me. Yes, God is my sole judge, my sole master!"
What inconceivable change has taken place in this soul, once so firm and so full of conviction? Human weakness!
After the sentence pronounced upon her the day before by Bishop Cauchon, the heroine was transported back to her cell. The feverish exaltation that upheld her in the presence of her judges was followed by a reaction of profound dejectment. Still she was resigned to suffer death. Under these circumstances, and pretending to have obtained from the captain of the tower permission to administer to her the last consolations, Canon Loyseleur visited Joan. She received the priest with thankful joy. Instructed by Joan on the last events, the canon broke down in tears, moans and laments, and dwelled with affected horror upon the frightful details of Joan's pending execution—shocking details: Joan was to be taken in a shirt, not a woman's shirt as she had begged for on the ground of its being longer, but in a man's shirt; nor was that all. The English chiefs had decided that before delivering Joan to the flames, she was to be stripped wholly naked, and fastened in that state to the stake.
From the moment Joan learned that she was to be taken to the pyre in a man's shirt, and was then to be bound by the executioner in full view wholly naked to the stake, Joan's mind began to wander. She collected whatever strength was left her, and although chained by the feet, hands and waist, she stood upon her straw bed and flinging herself forward, violently struck her head twice against the wall of the dungeon in a frantic attempt to break her skull and die. But the impact of the poor creature, weak, exhausted and fainting as she was, was not strong enough to produce mortal, or even dangerous results. She fell down backward upon her couch where the canon charitably held her down. He sobbed; he implored his dear daughter in Christ not to yield to blind despair. True enough, it was an abominable ordeal for so pure a soul, so chaste a body, to be exposed at first half naked, and then wholly so, absolutely naked, to the lascivious looks and obscene jeers of the soldiery and mob! No doubt the ordeal would last an hour, perhaps longer; the English would take a delight in prolonging the period of the Maid's nudity. But, alack! how was the abomination to be avoided! There was only one way, and no doubtful one, a sure way of escaping, not the shame only, but even the pyre, aye, of escaping from the hands of the English. Thanks to that means, Joan might regain her freedom, return to her family at Domremy, and enjoy a restoring rest after so many trials. And then, when she should have recovered her health, the martial maid could again don her armor, call her valiant followers to arms, and marching at their head, complete her work of driving the English out of France.
Joan Darc believed herself in a dream as she listened to the canon. His age, his tears, his moaning, the constant interest that he had taken in her since she was brought to her present dungeon—everything contributed to remove from her spirit all thought of suspicion. In a semi-stupor she questioned the canon on the means that he had in mind, from which he promised such certain deliverance.
The tempter pursued his dark scheme with infernal skill. He began by asking the heroine whether in her soul and conscience she did not look upon her judges as monsters of iniquity? She readily assented. Could she, consequently, feel herself bound by any promises that she might make to the butchers, she a prisoner, under duress? She, sold for the price of gold? No, concluded the canon, a promise made to these butchers for the purpose of escaping abominable ignominy and the horrors of burning, could never be binding upon an innocent victim. Such engagements were null.
Joan asked what the promises would be. The canon answered that it was merely a matter of renouncing in appearance the errors that the tribunal charged her with; in short, to submit in appearance to the judgment of the Church.
Joan's conscience revolted at the lie; to renounce the truth was to renounce God.
"Yes, but with your lips, with your lips only, and not with your heart!" pursued the tempter. "It is simply yielding to force; it is speaking for a moment the language of the butchers, a fallacious and perfidious language, true enough; but, thanks to such a legitimate fraud, to escape from them, thus to preserve His elect to God, and to France her liberator! It is simply a mouth-renunciation, while the soul will continue to glorify all the acts inspired by heaven."
"But to promise to abjure under condition of being set free, is to bind oneself to abjure," answered Joan, disconcerted by the canon's sophism.
"And what would that matter?" argued the tempter. "What would it matter to make even a public abjuration, even kneeling at the Bishop's feet, saying to him with the lips: 'My apparitions and my visions were illusions; I have sinned in assuming man's habits; I have sinned in waging war; I have sinned in refusing to submit to the judgment of the Church. I now make my submission and regret my sins.' What would such vain words matter? Did they proceed from the interior tribunal, the sacred refuge of truth with the oppressed? Would perchance, the Lord, who reads our secret thoughts, fail to read in your soul, at the very moment when you would be pretending to abjure: 'My God, You before whom nothing is hidden, I internally glorify these visions and apparitions, the revered signs of Your omnipotence! I proclaim You my only judge, Oh, my divine Master! And in Your infinite mercy You will pardon me these few idle words, drawn from me by the desire of continuing to be the instrument of Your supreme will, and by the desire of, with Your aid, driving the stranger from the sacred soil of the fatherland.' Would God fail to read these sentiments?"
Joan succumbed before the infernal tempter. Vainly did she hear her voices warn her:
"To deny the truth is to deny God! You are about to lie in the face of heaven and of men, more out of a chaste shame than out of fear to burn. You are about to lie in the hope of regaining your freedom to finish your divine mission. Such a fraud is cowardly and criminal."
But weakened by her sufferings, exhausted in the physical and mental struggle that she had undergone, above all frightened out of her wits at the thought of her virginal body being exposed naked by the executioner to the eyes of men, and finally tempted by the prospect of freedom, of again seeing her family and perchance achieving her work of liberation, Joan shut her ears to the inflexible voice of her honor, of her faith, of her conscience, and promised Canon Loyseleur to make a public abjuration and submission to the Church, under the condition of a pledge from the Bishop that she would be set at liberty immediately after her abjuration. The canon charitably offered his services to the prisoner; he expressed his certainty of successfully conducting the negotiation, and of being able to overcome the resistance of the savage captain of the tower and secure permission to call upon the Bishop without delay.
As may be believed, Loyseleur readily obtained the permission. Towards midnight he returned with the institutor of the process and a physician. The latter induced the captive to take a mixture that was to serve at once as a tonic and a soporific. The mixture would enable her to sleep restfully until morning, and would give her strength for the expiatory ceremony. Joan Darc submitted to everything, saying to herself: "I shall be free to-morrow, and shall have escaped an ignominy that is worse than death."
The scaffold raised within the precincts of the cemetery of the Abbey of St. Audoin is the immediate result of Canon Loyseleur's machinations in Joan's cell. On the scaffold's spacious platform Joan is to appear, surrounded by the ecclesiastics, and make a public abjuration.
The impatient crowd awaits the arrival of the cortege. More than half a century under the yoke of English rule, most of the people of Rouen are of the Burgundian party, and see in Joan Darc only an enemy. Nevertheless, the astounding renown of the martial maid, her youth, her beauty, her misfortune, her glory, awaken a profound sentiment of pity for her among all, and the feeling is strongest among those who have remained French at heart and are of the Armagnac party. The purpose of Joan's public and solemn appearance is still unknown to the mass. Some say that a public exposure is to precede the death penalty, to which she is doubtlessly condemned; others, ignorant of the course of the trial, believe she is to be publicly interrogated. William Poole, the Earl of Warwick, and other English captains and prominent personages are grouped in a reserved space inside the cemetery and near the scaffold.
Presently a distant and increasing noise announces the approach of the train. The crowd presses and becomes more compact outside the cemetery. The procession draws near, escorted by English archers. At its head march the Cardinal of Winchester in the Roman purple, and the Bishop of Beauvais with a gold mitre on his head, a gold crosier in his hand and over his shoulders the chasuble of violet silk, resplendent in embroidery. Behind them and in his monk's frock comes the inquisitor John Lemaitre, together with Peter of Estivet, the official institutor of the process, William Erard and two registrars, carrying parchments and writing portfolios.
A few steps behind them, and sustained by two penitents whose grey robes, covering them from head to foot, are pierced with two holes at the elevation of their eyes, Joan advances slowly. Her weakness is extreme, and although her eyes are wide open she does not seem to be wholly awake; she still seems under the effect of the soporific and tonic of the night before. She seems to look without seeing, and to hear with indifference the hisses of the mob that, incited by the example of the English soldiers, makes hostile demonstrations against the victim. On Joan's head is a high mitre of black pasteboard which bears in large letters the following words: "Heretic," "Idolater," "Apostate." A long robe of coarse black wool envelops her from the neck down to her bare feet. She halts for a moment before the scaffold, while the Cardinal, the Bishop and other prelates take their seats upon it. At a signal from one of the registrars, the two penitents, holding Joan under the arms, help her to ascend the stairs of the scaffold. The sky is this day of an admirable clearness; the sun shines brilliantly; the pleasant warmth of its rays penetrates and gradually warms Joan Darc, who still shivers from the dampness of the subterraneous dungeon in which she has so long lain buried night and day. She inhales the bracing and pure air with delight, and in full draughts. The atmosphere of her cell was so heavy, so fetid! She seems to revive; her chilled and clogged blood courses anew with the delight of life; she experiences an indescribable sense of happiness at the contemplation of that azure sky bathed in light, and at the sight of the green grass of the cemetery, studded here and there with spring flowers. At a little distance stands a clump of trees, near the abbey. The birds chirp in their foliage, the insects hum—everything seems to sing and express delight on that sweet May morning. The sight of nature that Joan has so long been deprived of—she who was from early infancy accustomed to live on the meadows and in the woods—transports her into a sort of ecstasy. She forgets her sufferings, her martyrdom, her sentence and even the abjuration that she is about to pronounce. If her thoughts at all fall upon these topics, the only effect is the pleasurable reminder that she is soon to be free. Oh, free! to be free! To see her village again! the oak forest, the Fountain of the Fairies, the smiling and shady banks of the Meuse! To see again her family, her friends, and, renouncing the bitter illusions of glory, escaping the royal ingratitude, the hypocrisy, the hatred and the envy of men, quietly spend her days in Domremy at her rustic labors as in the happy days of yore! And that, all that at the price of a few words pronounced before her butcher-judges, those monsters of iniquity! Oh, at this moment of physical exaltation Joan would sign her abjuration with her own blood. Her heart-beats, pulsating with hope, smother within her the austere voices of her honor and her faith. In vain do these whisper to her: "Be not faint-hearted! Bravely uphold the truth in the teeth of those false priests, and you will be delivered from your trials, not for a day, but for all eternity!" These voices are not now listened to; her physical delight is too vast. Suddenly she is recalled to her condition by the voice of Bishop Cauchon who severely says to her:
"Joan, down on your knees; bow your head!"
Joan Darc kneels down without removing her eyes from the beautiful blue of the sky, from the radiant light of the sun from which she seeks to draw the strength necessary to persevere in her resolution of abjuring. A profound silence falls upon the crowd, the front ranks of which can hear the words uttered on the scaffold, and Bishop Cauchon, crossing himself, proceeds:
"My very dear brothers, the Lord said it to his apostle St. John, the palm tree cannot of itself produce fruit if it does not live. Thus, my very dear brothers, you must persevere in the true life of our holy mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, which our Lord Jesus Christ built with his right hand. But, alack! there are perverse souls, abominable and idolatrous (he points at Joan Darc) filled with heretical crimes, who rise with an audacity that is truly infernal against the unity of our holy Church, to the great scandal and to the painful horror of all good believers. (To Joan Darc with a menacing voice:) There you are now upon a scaffold, in the face of heaven and of men. Is the light to enter at last your haughty and diabolical soul? Will you at last submit in all humbleness your words and acts to the Church militant, the enormities of your acts! your monstrous words! according to the infallible judgment of the priests of the Lord? Reflect and answer! If not, the Church will abandon you to the secular arm and your body will go up in the flames of the pyre."
These words produce a deep commotion among the crowd. The majority of those present are hostile to Joan Darc. A small number feel sincere pity for her. These various sentiments find expression in cries, imprecations and charitable utterances:
"She has not yet been condemned, the witch! Death to the abominable idolater!"
"A door of safety is being held open to her. Death to the heretic!"
"By St. George! Upon the word of an English archer, I shall set the Bishop's house on fire if the strumpet is not brought to the pyre at once!"
"Mercy will be extended to her! And yet with her sorceries she has exterminated our invincible army!"
"Her partisans want to save her!"
"I hope they may succeed! Poor girl! She has suffered so much! Mercy for her!"
"How pale and thin she is! She looks like a ghost! Take pity upon the poor creature!"
"She fought for France. And after all, we are French!"
"Speak not so loud, my friend, the English soldiers may overhear you!"
"Jesus! My God! To burn her! Her who was so brave and so pious! It would be an act of barbarism!"
"Is it her fault that God inspired her?"
"If saints appeared before her, and spoke to her, all the greater the honor!"
"How can a bishop of the good God dare to pronounce her a sorceress!"
"Death! Death to the witch!"
"Death! Death to the she-devil!"
"To the pyre with the strumpet of the Armagnacs!"
At these ferocious cries and infamous insults Joan Darc's terror redoubles. The ignominy that awaits her if she does not abjure rises before her. To abjure means to escape mortal shame; to abjure means to regain freedom! Joan Darc resigns herself. Still her loyalty and conscience revolt at that supreme moment, and instead of completely renouncing her errors, she mutters on her knees: "I have sincerely stated all my actions to my judges; I believed I acted under the command of God. I do not wish to accuse either my God or anybody. If I have sinned I alone am guilty. I rely upon God. I implore His mercy."
"Subterfuges!" cried Bishop Cauchon. "Subterfuges! Yes, or no; do you consider true what the priests, your only judges in matters of faith, declare concerning your actions and words—words and acts that have been pronounced fallacious, homicidal, sacrilegious, idolatrous, heretical and diabolical? Answer! (Joan is silent) I call upon you a second time to answer! (Joan is still silent) I ask you a third time to answer! You are silent? You are an abominable criminal!"
Yes, the heroine remains silent, racked by a supreme internal struggle. "Abjure!" whispered to her the instinct of self-preservation. "Do not abjure! Do not lie! Courage! Courage!" cries her conscience; "maintain the truth unto shame and death!" The wretched girl wrings her hands, and remains silent, a prey to distracting agonies.
"Alack!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon, addressing the people. "My very dear brothers! You see the stiff-neckedness of this unhappy woman! She spurns her tender mother the Church, that extends her arms to her with love and pardon! Alack! Alack! The evil spirit has taken a firm hold of her who might now have been Joan. Her, whose body shall have to be delivered to the burning flames of the pyre! Her, whose ashes will be cast to the winds! Her, who, deprived of the holy Eucharist at the moment of death, and loaded down with the decree of excommunication, is about to be cast into the bottom of hell for all eternity! Alack! Alack! Joan, you willed it so. We believed in your repentance, we consented not to deliver you to the secular arm. But you persist in your heresy. Then listen to your sentence!"
While the Bishop is recalling the formula of the sentence several English soldiers brandish their lances and cry: "Let an end be made of this!"
"Throw the witch quickly into the fire!"
"Death to the magician!"
At the same time other voices from the crowd cry:
"Poor, brave girl! Mercy for her!"
"Lord God! How can she deny her visions! Mercy! Mercy!"
"It would be a lie and cowardice on her part! Courage! Courage!"
Bishop Cauchon rises, terrible, and with his hands extended to heaven makes ready to utter the final curse upon the accused. "Joan!" he cries, "listen to your sentence. In the name of the Church, we, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by the mercy of God, declare you—"
Joan Darc interrupts the approaching imprecation with a shriek of terror, clasps her hands, and collapses upon the scaffold, crying: "Mercy! Mercy!"
"Do you submit yourself to the judgment of the Church?" again asks Bishop Cauchon.
Livid and her teeth chattering with terror, Joan Darc answers: "Yes, I submit myself!"
"Do you renounce your apparitions and visions as false, sacrilegious, and diabolical?" the Bishop asks.
Wholly broken down, and in a gasping voice, Joan makes answer: "Yes—yes—I renounce them—seeing the priests consider them wicked things. I submit to their opinion—I shall submit to everything that the Church may order—Mercy! Have pity upon me!" and cowering upon herself, she hides her face in her hands amidst convulsive sobs.
"Oh, my very dear brothers!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon with an affectation of charity. "What a beautiful day! What a holy day! What a glorious day! that on which the Church in her maternal joy opens her arms to one of her children, repentful after having long wandered from the fold! Joan, your submission saves your body and your soul! Repeat after me the formula of abjuration." The Bishop beckons to one of the registrars, who brings to him a parchment containing the formula of abjuration.
Violent outcries break out from the crowd. The English soldiers and the people of the Burgundian party feel irritated at the prospect of the Maid's escaping death, and break out into imprecations against the judges. They charge the Bishop and the Cardinal with treason and threaten to burn down their houses. The English captains share the indignation of their men. One of the former, the Earl of Warwick, steps out of the group in which he stands, rushes up the stairs of the scaffold, and approaching the prelate says to him angrily, in a low voice: "Bishop, Bishop, is that what you promised us?" "Be patient!" answers the prelate, also in a low voice; "I shall keep my promise; but calm your men; they are quite capable of massacring us!"
Sufficiently acquainted with Peter Cauchon to know he can trust him, the Earl of Warwick again descends from the platform, joins his companions in arms, and communicates the Bishop's answer to them. The latter hasten to distribute themselves among the ranks of the soldiers, whose anger they appease with assurances that the witch will be burned despite her abjuration. But while one part of the mob is enraged at the Maid's abjuration and the Bishop's pardon, another, consisting of the people who pity Joan, is thrown into consternation. This feeling soon makes way for indignation. She denies her visions; then they were false pretences; she lied when she claimed to be sent by God. And if her visions were true, she is now disgracing herself by a shameful act of cowardice. Coward or liar—such is the judgment they now pass upon Joan Darc. The infernal ecclesiastical plot is skilfully hatched; through it the sympathy once felt for the heroine is extinguished in the hearts of her partisans themselves. On her knees upon the scaffold, cowering down, and her face covered by her hands, Joan Darc seems a stranger to what passes around her. Overcome by so many conflicting emotions, her mind again begins to wander, she seems to have but one fixed idea—to escape the disgrace of the stake.
Silence being finally restored, Peter Cauchon rises with the parchment in his hands and says: "Joan, you shall now repeat with your heart and your lips, the following formula of abjuration, in the measure that I pronounce it. Listen!" and he proceeds to read in a voice that is heard by the remotest ranks of the pressing crowd: "'Any person who has erred in the Catholic faith, and who thereafter by the grace of God has returned to the light of truth and to the bosom of our holy mother the Church, must be careful not to allow himself to be provoked by the evil spirit into a relapse. For this reason, I, Joan, commonly named the Maid, a miserable sinner, recognizing that I was fettered by the chains of error, and wishing to return to the bosom of our holy mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, I, Joan, to the end of proving that I have returned to my tender mother, not in false appearance, but with my heart, do hereby confess, first, that I gravely sinned by falsely causing others to believe that I had apparitions and revelations of God in the forms of St. Marguerite and St. Catherine and of St. Michael the archangel.'" Turning to Joan, the Bishop asks: "Do you confess having wickedly sinned in that, and of having been impious and sacrilegious?"
"I confess it!" comes from Joan Darc in a broken voice.
An outburst of cries from the indignant mob greets the confession of the penitent. Those now most furious are the ones who were before moved with tender pity for her.
"So, then, you lied!"
"You imposed upon the poor people, miserable hypocrite!"
"And I, who felt pity for her!"
"The Church is too indulgent!"
"Think of accepting the penitence of so infamous a cheat!"
"Upon my word, comrades, she is quite capable of being possessed of the devil as the English claimed! The strumpet and liar!"
"And yet her victories were none the less brilliant for all that!"
"Aye! through witchcraft! Are you going to show pity for the liar?"
"Fear of the fagot makes one admit many a thing!"
"Then she is a coward! She has not the courage to uphold the truth in the face of death! What faint-heartedness!"
Silence is restored only by degrees. Joan Darc hears the frightful accusations hurled at her. To return to her first declarations would be an admission of fear. Her mind wanders again.
Continuing to read from the formula of abjuration, Bishop Cauchon says: "'Secondly, I, Joan, confess to have grievously sinned by seducing people with superstitious divinations, by blaspheming the angels and the saints, and by despising the divine law of Holy Writ and the canonical laws.'" Addressing Joan the Bishop asks: "Do you confess it?'
"I confess it!" murmurs Joan.
Bishop Cauchon proceeds to read: "'Thirdly, I, Joan confess having grievously sinned by wearing a dissolute garb, deformed and dishonest, in violation of decency and nature; and by wearing my hair cut round, after the fashion of men, and contrary to modesty'—Do you confess that sin?"
"I confess it!"
"'Fourthly, I, Joan, confess having grievously sinned by boastfully carrying armor of war, and by cruelly desiring the shedding of human blood.'—Do you confess it?"
Joan Darc wrings her hands and exclaims: "My God! Can I affirm such things?"
"What! You hesitate!" exclaims Bishop Cauchon, and he adds, addressing her in a low voice: "Be careful, the fagots await you!"
"I confess it, Father," stammers Joan.
"Joan, do you confess having cruelly desired the effusion of human blood?" asks Bishop Cauchon in a thundering voice.
"I confess it!"
Loud cries of horror go up from the mob, while the English soldiers brandish their weapons at Joan. Some men pick up stones to stone the heroine to death. The imprecations against her redouble threateningly.
"The harpy waged war out of pure cruelty!"
"She merely wished to soak herself in blood!"
"And the Church pardons her!"
"At one time I felt great pity for the wretch. Now I say with the English, Death to the tigress who lived on blood!"
"You fools! Do you believe these priests? Do you think Joan went after battle to drink the blood of the slain?"
"You defend her?"
"Yes! Oh, why am I alone?"
"You are a traitor!"
"He is an Armagnac!"
"Death to the Armagnac!"
The mob beats Joan's defender to death. As to herself, her condition is now such that she no longer is aware of aught she hears or says. She has practically lost consciousness. She barely has enough strength to respond mechanically, "I confess it," each time she hears Bishop Cauchon ask her, "Do you confess it?" In the midst, however, of her weakness and the wandering of her mind, one thought she is fully conscious of, the thought that her agony cannot last long; within a short time she would be dead or free! Poor martyr!
Bishop Cauchon continues to read: "'Fifthly, I, Joan, confess that I grievously sinned in claiming that all my acts and all my words were inspired to me by God, His saints and His angels, while in truth I despised God and His sacraments and I constantly invoked evil spirits.'—Do you confess it?"
"I confess it!"
"She confesses that she is a witch!" cries a voice from the mob.
"By St. George, she has exterminated thousands of my countrymen by her sorceries! And shall she escape the fagots!"
"She will be burned later! Our captains have promised us!"
"They deceive us! We shall burn her ourselves, now!"
Bishop Cauchon reads: "'Sixthly, I, Joan, confess that I grievously sinned by being a schismatic.'—Do you confess it?"
"I confess it!"
Bishop Cauchon continues reading: "'All of which crimes and errors, I, Joan, having returned to the truth, by the grace of our Lord, and also by the grace of our holy and infallible doctrine, my good and reverend Fathers, I now renounce and abjure.'—Do you renounce, do you abjure these crimes and errors?"
"I renounce! I abjure!"
Bishop Cauchon reads on: "'In the faith and the belief of all of which, I declare that I shall submit to the punishment that the Church may inflict upon me, and I promise and swear to St. Peter, the prince of the apostles, and to our Holy Father the Pope of Rome, his vicar, and to his successors, and to you, my seigneurs, and to you, my reverend father in God, Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais, and to you religious person, Brother John Lemaitre, vicar of the Inquisition of the faith, I, Joan, swear to you, to all of you my judges, never again to relapse into the criminal errors that it has pleased the Lord to deliver me from! I swear ever to remain in the union of our holy mother the Church, and in obedience to our Holy Father the Pope!'—Do you swear?"
"I swear—and I am dying!"
Bishop Cauchon beckons to one of the registrars. The latter takes a pen out of his portfolio, dips it in ink, hands it to the prelate, and holds up his square cap for a desk. The prelate places the parchment on the cap, and continues to read from it in a loud voice:
"'I, Joan, affirm and confirm all that is said above; I swear to it and affirm it in the name of the living and all-powerful God and of the sacred gospels, in proof whereof, and not knowing how to write, I have signed this document with my mark,'" saying which he presents the pen to the kneeling Joan and pointing to the parchment on the registrar's cap, adds: "Now place your cross here, below, seeing you do not know how to write."
In an almost expiring condition Joan Darc endeavors to trace a cross at the bottom of the parchment. Her strength fails her. The registrar kneels down beside the Maid, and guiding her inert and icy hand, aids her to make her mark at the bottom of the document. This being done, he calls the two penitents dressed in long grey gowns who have remained at the foot of the scaffold, and delivers to them the almost insensible Joan Darc. They place themselves on either side of her and take her under the arms. Her head drops upon her shoulder; from between her half-closed eyelids her eyes appear fixed and glassy. The only sign that life has not yet fled is a slight tremor that from time to time runs over her frame.
Stepping forward, Bishop Cauchon addresses the crowd in a tremendous voice: "All pastors charged with the duty of lovingly guarding the flock of Christ must endeavor to keep far from their dear flock all causes of pestilence, infection and corruption, and must seek to lead back the sheep that has wandered off among the brambles. Wherefore, we, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by the grace of God, assisted by John Lemaitre, Inquisitor of the faith, and other learned and reverend priests, all competent judges, having heard and considered your assertions and your admissions, do now declare to you, Joan the Maid: We pronounce you guilty of having falsely maintained that you have had divine visions and revelations; guilty of having seduced weak people and having stiff-neckedly held to your opinions; guilty of having despised the sacraments and the holy canons; guilty of having favored sedition against our sovereign and serene master the King of England and France; guilty of having cruelly shed human blood; guilty of having apostatized, schismatized, blasphemed, idolatrized and invoked the evil spirit. But seeing that by the grace of the All-Powerful you have at last returned to the pale of our holy and sweet mother the Church, and that, filled with sincere contrition and genuine faith, you have publicly and in a loud voice made abjuration of your criminal and heretical errors, we now suspend the punishment of excommunication and its consequences, upon the express condition that you sincerely return to our holy and merciful Church. And charitably wishing to aid you in accomplishing your salvation, we condemn you, Joan the Maid, to perpetual imprisonment where your food shall be the bread of pain, your drink the water of agony, to the end that, weeping throughout the rest of your life over your monstrous sins, you may never again incur them. This is your final and definite condemnation. You now see how the Church of our Lord shows herself a tender mother towards you. Do then forevermore abandon and deplore your culpable error! Renounce your male attire forever, a shame to your sex! And should you relapse into that or any other mortal and idolatrous sin, then will the Church with profound and maternal pain be forced to cut you off forever from her body, she will then deliver you to the secular arm, and you will be cast into the flames like a gangrened member, seized with incurable rottenness. Glory to God on high, Amen."
The mob, especially the English soldiers, receive the "merciful" sentence with a threatening clamor. The people make a move to force the gate of the cemetery, which is guarded by a platoon of archers. The latter, being no less exasperated, seem ready to join the discontented and attack the platform. The Earl of Warwick quickly ascends the scaffold and again angrily addresses the Bishop: "Bishop! Has not this comedy lasted long enough? We can no longer answer for our soldiers in their present state of exasperation if, despite her abjuration, the witch is not burned!"
Bishop Cauchon suppresses with difficulty a gesture of impatience. He whispers into the English captain's ear. The latter, seeming to be convinced by what he hears, answers with a gesture of approval. The prelate adds: "Rest assured of what I promise you. At present see to it that the gate of the cemetery is well guarded, and that the mob is not allowed to break in. We shall make our exit by the garden of the abbey, and the Maid will be taken the same way. She would otherwise be massacred by the good people. And that must not be. She has only fainted. She will be seen to in her prison."
The Earl of Warwick again descends from the platform. The Bishop issues his orders to the penitents who are supporting the wholly unconscious Joan in their arms. They raise her—one under the arms, the other by the feet, descend the stairs of the platform, and, bearing their burden, walk rapidly across the cemetery to the garden of the abbey, while the English soldiers, obedient to the orders of their captains, who promise to them the speedy execution of Joan, close their ranks before the gate of the cemetery and keep back the mob, that shouts for the death of the witch.
After her formal abjuration Joan Darc is taken in an almost dying condition, not to her cell but to a room in the Castle of Rouen. By orders of the Bishop, two old women are appointed to nurse her. She is laid in a soft bed; her jaws, locked in convulsions, are forced open, and a calming beverage poured down her throat. Every day and night the physician visits her. On the second day after the abjuration, the patient is out of danger. When Joan Darc recovers consciousness, she finds herself in a spacious and neatly furnished room. The warm rays of the sun play upon the glass of the barred casement. The two old women, who have her in charge, are seated at the head of the patient's bed seeming to contemplate her with tender interest. Joan Darc first thinks that she dreams, but her next belief is that, agreeable to the promise made to her by the institutor in the name of the Bishop, she has secretly been set free. She believes that some charitable people have obtained from the Bishop permission to transport her to their own house. The first impression felt by Joan at these surmises is one of joy at being free, and no remorse assails her at having denied the truth. The bliss of having escaped the dreaded shame of exposure, the hope of soon recovering her health, the prospect of returning to Domremy and seeing her parents—all these pleasurable sentiments smother the reproaches of her voices. She asks the two old women where she is. They smile in answer, and mysteriously place their fingers on their lips. From these tokens Joan conjectures that they are not free to answer, but that she is in a safe and hospitable asylum. Preserving on this head the silence that seems to be recommended to her, Joan gives herself over without reserve to the joy of living, of looking through the window panels at the blue sky, at feeling her limbs, so long sore and even wounded by the weight of her chains, finally free from their cruel grip; above all she congratulates herself on being delivered from the presence of her jailers, whose revolting utterances and licentious looks have been a cause of unremitting torture to her. She accepts nourishment and even some generous wine mixed with water. Her strength returns. On the third day she is able to rise. Her nurses offer her a long woman's dress and a hat. No longer assailed by the chaste apprehension that her jailers inspired her with in her cell, Joan resumes without hesitation the garb of her sex. The door of the room that she occupies opens upon a terrace on which her nurses induce her to promenade. A board fence high enough to shut off the view surrounds the terrace.
Joan remains a long time upon the terrace, inhaling the spring air with delight. When night approaches, feeling herself slightly fatigued by her walk, she undresses, lies down upon her bed, and sleeps profoundly.
Subject to human weakness, and transported by the joy of being free after such a long, painful and rigid confinement, the poor martyr is not assailed by remorse until towards evening. Vague sentiments, the forerunners of the approaching awakening of her conscience having cast a shadow over her spirit, she seeks in sleep both further rest and oblivion. Her expectations prove false.
St. Marguerite and St. Catherine appear in the heroine's dream; they do not now smile and look down tenderly upon her. They are sad and threatening, and reproach her for having denied the truth out of fear and shame. Profoundly impressed by her dream, Joan wakes up, her face covered with tears, when, lo, she sees the two saints with their gold crowns on their heads and robed in white and blue, luminously, almost transparently floating in the darkness of the room, and calling her by her name.
With beating heart and clasped hands, Joan kneels down on her bed, sobs, and implores their forgiveness. Without answering her, the two saints point to heaven with a significant gesture. The apparition then gradually fades away, and darkness again reigns supreme.
Thus rudely awakened to a sense of her actual condition, the heroine forthwith feels the promptings of her own conscience, that has lain torpid since the abjuration. She traces back the solemnity in all its horrid details; she recalls the maledictions with which she was whelmed by those who just before commiserated her. The terrible, yet legitimate accusation pounds upon her ears:
"If Joan's visions are inventions and a fraud, she has deceived simple people—she has lied—she only deserves contempt."
"If her visions were genuine, if God inspired her, she covers herself with shame by abjuring out of fear of death!"
"Coward or liar" her inexorable voices repeat to her; "coward, or liar!—such is the name that you will leave behind you!"
Indescribable are the tortures that the poor creature undergoes on that night of desperate remorse. The full lucidity of her mind, of her energy, of her character, have returned to her, but only to curse her. Her keen judgment points out to her the fatal consequences of her abjuration; the soldiers and the peoples who rose at her voice against the foreigner will soon learn of the perjury committed by her whom they believed inspired! Mistrust of themselves, dejectment, even defeat may follow the victorious exaltation of the soldiers and the people. On the other hand, the memory of the martial maid, surviving her martyrdom, would have added fuel to their courage, it would have aroused an avenging hatred for the English, and the great work of the complete emancipation of Gaul would have been achieved in the name of the victim, and in execration of her butchers.
Finally, could Joan continue the war even after she regained her freedom? What confidence could she inspire in the masses, she who had been convicted of falsehood or cowardice?
The plot of the ecclesiastics was planned with diabolical craft. They foresaw and calculated the consequences of the heroine's apostasy; they realized that, taken to the pyre after she had confessed the divinity of her mission, Joan would have become a saint; if, however, she renounced her past actions, she was dishonored.
"Idle remorse!" thinks Joan. "How retract a public abjuration. Impossible! Who could believe in the sincerity of a creature who had once before renounced her faith and her honor!"
These mind and heartrending thoughts are tearing Joan Darc to pieces when morning dawns and a rap is heard at the door of her chamber. The old women rise and go to inquire who is there. It is their reverend father in God, Canon Loyseleur. He wishes to speak to Joan without delay. She hastily puts on her woman's clothes and prepares to receive the priest, towards whom she now experiences a secret aversion, seeing that she accuses him in her heart for having led her to abjure by superexciting her dread of the shame and fear of the fagots. She reflects, however, that after all, the priest might have actually believed in the wisdom of his advice, and that she alone is responsible for the cowardly apostasy. Joan receives the canon with her habitual sweetness of manners. She learns from him that she is still a prisoner in the Castle of Rouen, but that the Bishop will set her free. The prelate, adds the canon, has no interest in retaining her a prisoner, and is to allow her to escape at night in a day or two. Loyseleur pretends that, thanks to his own personal intercession with the captain of the tower, she has been transferred to that room; but the captain demands that, the prisoner being now almost well again, she be returned to her cell. His orders are to be carried out that very morning.
Joan Darc believes the priest's words and easily reconciles herself to the idea of returning to her cell, but she asks as a supreme favor that male attire be provided to her for the sake of protection against her jailers. Canon Loyseleur promises to carry her wishes to the captain of the tower. Suddenly one of the old women rushes into the room saying that the jailer and an escort of soldiers are coming to claim the prisoner. The canon assures Joan she is soon to be set free, and leaves the room at the moment that John enters, carrying manacles which he fastens on the wrists of the heroine, and then conducts her back to her cell. Upon entering, Joan notices that the male clothes which she left there have disappeared. She expects to see herself chained by the waist and feet as she was before; but, freeing her even of the manacles, John informs her that she is no longer to be chained, saying which he leaves, casting a strange look upon her. Hardly concerned at this leniency, Joan sits down upon her straw couch and remains motionless, occupied with her own thoughts.
It has long been night. The little iron lamp lights the dungeon of Joan Darc, who lies upon her straw couch broken with remorse at the continuous reproaches of her voices, and racking her brain for the means to expiate her weakness. The captive bitterly regrets the disappearance of her masculine clothes. Agitated by vague presentiments, and apprehensive of dangers on which she hardly dares dwell, she has wrapped herself as closely as she can in her clothes, and fearing to yield to the sleepiness that is gaining upon her, she rises from her straw bed and sits down upon the floor with her back leaning against the wall. But pressed down by sleep, her eyelids close despite herself, by degrees her head droops forward, and finally drops upon her knees which she holds within her arms. She falls asleep.
A few minutes later the pale face of Canon Loyseleur appears at the wicket. He notices that Joan is asleep, and withdraws.
Shortly afterwards the heavy door of the dungeon turns noiselessly upon its hinges. It opens and recloses so silently that Joan Darc's slumber, is not interrupted either by the slight noise of the door or the steps of two men who creep into the cavernous precinct. The two men are Talbot and Berwick, the English captains, who are appointed by Bishop Cauchon as the additional keepers of Joan Darc. Both are men in the prime of life. They wear rich slashed jackets after the fashion of the time. The two noble officers have sought in the stimulus of wine the requisite courage to commit the unheard-of atrocity, the nameless crime that they are bent upon. Their cheeks are inflamed, their eyes glisten, a lewd smile contracts their vinous lips. At the sight of Joan asleep they stop a moment and take council. Presently the two rush upon their victim.
Awakened with a start, Joan Darc leaps up and struggles to free herself from the grasp of her assailants. Berwick seizes her by the waist, while Talbot, sliding behind, seizes her arms and approaches his mouth to the lips of Joan, who turns her head away and utters a piercing shriek. The two noblemen drag her to the straw couch. The heroine draws superhuman strength from her despair. A violent struggle ensues, horrible, nameless. The tipsy Talbot and Berwick, exasperated at the heroine's resistance, give a loose to the fury of unsatisfied lechery. They smite Joan Darc with their fists. Her face bleeds. Yet she resists, and calls for help.
At last the door opens and Canon Loyseleur appears at the entrance. He feigns indignation. He brings with him a little trunk containing Joan's male clothes, and addressing the captain of the tower who enters with him, says: "You see it with your own eyes! An infamous attempt is contemplated upon the unfortunate woman!" Perhaps not wholly dead to conscience, Berwick and Talbot allow Joan Darc to escape from their grasp, and leave the cell, followed by the captain. Distracted, her face black and blue and covered with blood, Joan Darc falls almost senseless upon her couch, near which the canon has deposited her man's attire. Before he has time to speak with the victim, he is called away by the jailer, who, shaking his fist at him, says roughly:
"Get out of here, you tonsured dotard, canon of Satan! The devil take the marplot!"
"Poor child!" cries the priest, walking out, "I brought you your clothes. Put them on despite the oath you took. You may perhaps be sentenced as a relapsed heretic. But death is preferable to outrage!"
The door of the cell closes behind the canon. Silence and darkness resume their empire in Joan's dungeon. The plot to cause Joan's condemnation, induce her abjuration and then provoke her relapse so as to justify her being publicly burned to death is being carried out to the letter.
It is eight o'clock of the following morning. Joan Darc is again clad in her male attire. She is again chained. Her handsome face is bruised from the blows that she received in the nocturnal struggle. One thought only absorbs her mind—can she manage to confess aloud the truth of what she has denied? The heroine's expectations are met by the event. Instructed by his accomplice of the happenings of the day before, the Bishop has commissioned several judges to visit Joan in her cell. They are seven. Here are their names:
Nicolas of Venderesse, William Haiton, Thomas of Courcelles, Isambard of La Pierre, James Camus, Nicolas Bertin, Julien Floquet.
Considering her crime flagrant, Joan Darc feels a bitter joy at the sight of the priests. Her head erect, calm, resolute, she seems to challenge their questions. Out of modesty and dignity, however, and unwilling to run the risk of blushing before these men, she decides to be silent upon the attempt of the previous night. The judges range themselves around the couch of the enchained captive.
Thomas of Courcelles (affecting astonishment)—"What, Joan, again in man's attire? And despite your oath to renounce such idolatrous garb forever?"
Joan Darc (tersely)—"I have resumed these clothes because I was forced to."
Nicolas of Venderesse—"You have violated your oath."
Joan Darc (indignant)—"It is you who have violated yours! Have the promises made to me been kept? Have I been allowed to attend mass? Have I been restored to freedom after my abjuration? You are knaves and hypocrites!"
James Camus—"We had to conform to the ecclesiastical sentence which condemns you to perpetual imprisonment."
Joan Darc—"I prefer to die rather than remain in this prison. (She shivers with horror at the thought of the previous night's attempt upon her.) Had I been allowed to attend mass, had I been left in a decent place, free from my chains, and kept by women, I would have continued to clothe myself in the garb of my sex. If there is any fault, it lies with you."
Isambard of la Pierre—"Have you heard your voices since your condemnation?"
Joan Darc (with bitterness)—"Yes; I have heard them."
The priests look at one another and exchange meaning looks.
William Haiton—"What did your voices say to you? We want to know."
Joan Darc (with a firm voice)—"They told me I committed an act of cowardice by denying the truth."
James Camus—"And before the abjuration, what did your voices say?"
Joan Darc (intrepidly looking at her judges)—"My voices said to me it would be criminal to deny the divine inspiration that ever guided me. (Commotion among the judges.) Upon the scaffold my voices said to me: 'Answer that preacher boldly—he is a false priest!' Woe is me, I did not obey my voices!"
The judges remain silent for a moment, and exchange expressive looks.
Thomas of Courcelles—"These words are as rash as they are criminal. After having abjured, you relapse into your damnable errors!"
Joan Darc (in a ringing voice)—"The error lies in lying—by abjuring I lied! What is damnable is to damn one's soul, and I damned it by not maintaining that I obeyed the will of heaven! My voices have reproached me for having abjured."
James Camus—"Thus, after resuming male attire, a capital crime, an unpardonable crime which makes you a relapsed one, revolvistis ad vestrum vomitum—you have returned to your vomit, you dare maintain that those alleged voices—"
Joan Darc—"The voices of my saints—come from God."
Thomas of Courcelles—"On the scaffold you confessed."
Joan Darc—"On the scaffold I was a coward! I lied! I yielded to the feeling of terror!"
James Camus—"At this hour, thinking you no longer need to fear death, you come back to your former declarations."
Joan Darc—"At this hour I maintain that only fear forced me to abjure, to confess the contrary of the truth. I prefer to die, rather than remain in this prison. I have spoken. You shall have not another word from me."
James Camus—"Be it so!"
The priests file out slowly and silently. Joan Darc remains alone, on her knees upon the straw. She raises her eyes to the vault of her prison with a radiant, inspired face, and with her hands joined, she thanks her saints for the courage they have given her to expiate and annul her apostasy by resolutely marching to death.
The scene changes. After the last interrogatory of Joan the priests proceed to Bishop Cauchon in order to inform him of the issue of their visit to the prisoner—a result that the prelate expects, so much so that he has convoked a sufficient number of judges to meet in the chapel of the Archbishop's palace at Rouen in order to proceed with the final sentence of the relapsed sinner. All the summoned prelates are assembled and in their seats in the chapel. Bishop Cauchon, seated in the center of the choir, presides, and orders silence with a gesture.
Bishop Cauchon—"My very dear brothers, Joan has fallen back into her damnable errors, and in contempt of her solemn abjuration, pronounced in the face of God and His Holy Writ, not only has she resumed her male attire, but she again stubbornly maintains that all that she has done and said was said and done by divine inspiration! I now call for your views, in the order of precedence, upon the fate of the said Joan who is now charged with having relapsed, reserving to myself the right of convoking you again, should I deem it necessary."
Archdeacon Nicolas of Venderesse—"The said Joan should be given over to the secular arm, to be burned alive as a relapsed sinner."
Abbot Agidie—"Joan is a relapsed heretic, no doubt about it. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that a second abjuration should be proposed to her, under pain of being delivered to the secular arm."
Canon John Pinchon—"Joan has relapsed; I shall adhere to whatever plan of punishment my very dear brothers may decide upon."
Canon William Erard—"I pronounce the said Joan a relapsed sinner and deserving of the pyre."
Chaplain Robert Gilbert—"Joan should be burned as a relapsed sinner and heretic."
Abbot of St. Audoin—"The woman is a relapsed sinner. Let her abjure a second time or be condemned."
Archdeacon John of Castillone—"Let the relapsed sinner be delivered to the secular arm."
Canon Ermangard—"I demand the exemplary death of Joan."
Deacon Boucher—"Joan should be sentenced as a relapsed one."
Prior of Longueville—"That is my opinion. She should be burned alive."
Father Giffard—"I think the relapsed sinner should be sentenced without delay."
Father Haiton—"I pronounce the said Joan a relapsed sinner. I am for her speedy punishment, provided, however, she refuses to abjure a second time."
Canon Marguerie—"Joan is a relapsed sinner. Let her be delivered up to secular justice."
Canon John of L'Epee—"I am of my brother's opinion. She should be burned to death."
Canon Garin—"I think so, too."
Canon Gastinel—"Let us give up the relapsed sinner to the pyre."
Canon Pascal—"That is my opinion. Let her be burned to death."
Father Houdenc—"The ridiculous explanations of the woman are to me an ample proof that she has always been an idolatress and a heretic. Besides that, she is a relapsed sinner. I demand that she be delivered to the secular arm without delay."
Master John of Nibat—"The said Joan is impenitent and a relapsed sinner. Let her undergo her punishment."
Father Fabre—"A heretic by habit, hardened in her errors, a rebel to the Church, the body of the said Joan should be delivered to the flames, and her ashes cast to the winds."
Abbot of Montemart—"I hold as my brother. Only I am of the opinion that she should be given a second chance to abjure."
Father Guelon—"That is my opinion."
Canon Coupequesne—"Mine also."
Canon Guillaume—"Let the said Joan be offered a second chance to retract. If she refuses, then death."
Canon Maurice—"I favor such a second summons, although I do not expect good results from it."
Doctor William of Bandibosc—"I side with my very dear brother."
Deacon Nicolas Caval—"The relapsed sinner should be treated without pity, according to her deserts. She should be burned to death."
Canon Loyseleur—"The said Joan should be delivered to the temporal flames."
Thomas of Courcelles—"The woman is a heretic and relapsed sinner. She may be summoned a second time, and told that if she persists in her errors, she has nothing to expect in this world."
Father John Ledoux—"Although such a second attempt seems to me idle, it might be tried so as to demonstrate the inexhaustible kindness of our mother the Church."
Master John Tiphaine—"I favor this second, though idle, attempt."
Deacon Colombelle—"I am of the same opinion."
Isambard of la Pierre—"Secular justice will take its course if the said Joan refuses to abjure a second time."
From these opinions it transpires that some of the judges demand immediate death, while others, and these are a small majority, favor a second abjuration, although the opinion is general that the attempt is vain. The judges have learned from their accomplices that the heroine is now determined to seek in death the expiation of the confessions which only fear drew from her. More straightforward and frank in his projects, moreover, convinced of the success of his plan, the Bishop sums up the deliberation and absolutely opposes the idea of attempting a second abjuration. Do not most of those who favor the measure consider it idle? Why, then, try it? And even if it were certain that the relapsed sinner would abjure again, the performance would have a deplorable effect. Did not the soldiers and the people, exasperated at the clemency of the Church, cry "Treason!" and seem ready to riot at the time of the first abjuration? Is it wise to incur and provoke a terrible turmoil in the town? Has not the Church given evidence of her maternal charity by admitting Joan to penitence, despite her perverse heresy? How was this act of benevolence rewarded by her? It was rewarded with renewed and redoubled boastfulness, audacity and impiety! Bishop Cauchon closes, conjuring his very dear brothers in the name of the dignity of the Church, in the name of the peace of the town, in the name of their conscience, to declare without superfluous verbiage that the said Joan is a relapsed sinner, and, as such, is given over to the secular arm, in order to be led to death the next day, after being publicly excommunicated by the Church. The judges yield to the views of the prelate. The registrar enters the sentence of death, and the session rises.
Peter Cauchon is the first to leave the chapel. Outside he meets several English captains who are waiting for the issue of the deliberations. One of them, the Earl of Warwick, says to the prelate:
"Well, what has been decided shall be done with the witch?"
"Farewell! It is done!" answers the Bishop with glee.
"The Maid—".
"Shall be burned to-morrow—burned to death in public," interrupts Bishop Cauchon.
During the evening of May 29, 1431, the rumor spreads through Rouen that the relapsed sinner is to be burned to death on the following day. That same night carpenters raise the necessary scaffoldings while others build the pyre and plant the stake. Early the next morning companies of English archers form a cordon around the market-place, where Joan Darc is to be executed, and a double file extends into one of the streets that runs into the place. The two files of soldiers leave a wide space between them, connecting the street with the vacant area left around the scaffoldings. These are three in number, the highest of the three being at a little distance from the other two. On one of these, the one to the right, which is covered with purple cloth, rises a daised seat of crimson, ornamented with tufts of white feathers and fringed with gold. A row of seats equally decked extends on both sides of the central and daised throne, which is reached by several steps covered with rich tapestry. The scaffold to the left is of the same dimensions as the first, but it, as well as the benches thereon, is draped in black. The last of the three scaffolds consists of solid masonry about ten feet high, broad at the bottom, and ending in a narrow platform in the middle of which stands a stake furnished with iron chains and clamps. The platform is reached by a narrow set of stairs that is lost to sight in the midst of an enormous pile of fagots mixed with straw and saturated with bitumen and sulphur. The executioners have just heaped up the combustibles on the four sides of the pile of masonry. Tall poles, fastened in the ground close to the pyre bear banners on which the following legends are to be read in large white letters on a black ground:
"Joan, who had herself called the Maid, condemned to be burned alive."
"Falsifier, misleader, and deceiver of the people."
"Soothsayer, superstitious, blasphemer of God."
"Presumptuous, apostate from the faith of Jesus Christ, idolatress, cruel, dissolute."
"Invoker of devils."
"Schismatic, relapsed."[116]
At eight all the bells of Rouen begin tolling the funeral knell. Poor Joan, she loved the bells so well in her childhood! The May sun, that same sun that shone upon the first defeat of the English before Orleans, pure and luminous, floods the three scaffolds with its light. The crowd grows thicker around the space kept vacant by the archers; other spectators are grouped at the windows and on the balconies of the old frame houses with pointed gables that enclose the market place. Presently flags and plumes are seen waving, the steel of the casques, the gold and precious stones of the mitres and crosiers are seen shining between the two files of archers. The casqued and mitred gentry are the English captains and the prelates. Prominent among them is the Cardinal of Winchester, Clad in the Roman purple and followed by the Bishop of Boulogne and the Bishop of Beauvais, Peter Cauchon. Behind them come the Earl of Warwick and other noble captains. Slowly and majestically they ascend the stairs of the platform to the right of the pyre. The Cardinal takes his seat upon the dais, while the other dignitaries distribute themselves to his right and left. The other scaffold, that is draped in black, is occupied by the judges of the process, its institutor, its assessors and its registrars.
The appearance and arrival of these illustrious, learned or holy personages does not satisfy the gaping crowd; the condemned girl has not yet appeared. Menacing clamors begin to circulate. These are loudest among the soldiers and the Burgundian partisans, who say:
"Will the Bishop keep his promise this time? Woe to him if he trifles with us."
"Will the witch be burned at last?"
"The fagots are ready; the executioners are holding the lighted wicks."
"She ought to be burned twice over, the infamous relapsed sinner!"
"She had the brazenness to declare that she abjured under the pressure of force! She persists in declaring herself inspired!"
"What an insolent liar! By St. George! could she ever have vanquished us without the assistance of the devil, us the best archers in the world? I was at the battle of Patay, where the best men of England were mowed down. I saw whole legions of demons rush upon us at her command. We could be vanquished only by such witchery."
"Those demons, sir archer, were French soldiers!"
"Blood and death! Do you imagine plain soldiers are able to beat us? They were demons, by St. George! real horned and clawed demons, armed with flaming swords—they plunged over our heads and pelted us with stones and balls!"
"It might have been the furious projectiles from some artillery pieces that were masked behind some hedge, sir archer."
"Artillery pieces of Satan, yes; but of France, no!"
"As true as our Cardinal has his red hat on his head, if the strumpet of the Armagnacs is not burned this time, myself and the other archers of my company will roast Bishop Cauchon together with all his tonsured brethren."
"Ha, ha, ha, ha! That is well said, my Hercules! To roast Bishop Cauchon like a pig! That would be a funny spectacle!"
"They are taking long! Death to the witch!"
"Do they expect us to sleep here to-night?"
"To the fagots with the heretic!"
"Death to the relapsed sinner!"
"To the pyre with the invoker of demons! The strumpet! Death to Joan!"
"She cheated the people!"
"She denies the religion of Jesus Christ!"
"To the pyre with the idolatress! The apostate! To the pyre with her, quick and soon!"
Such are the clamors of the English and the partisans of Burgundy. The royalists or Armagnacs are much less numerous. A few of them, especially women, experience a return of pity for Joan Darc, whose abjuration incensed all those who believed her inspired. With some this indignation still is uppermost and in full force. As these sentiments are indicative of sympathy, they are not uttered aloud but whispered out of fear of the English.
"Well, though the Maid's strength once failed her, it will not fail her to-day."
"It would seem that she had not lied to us. She will now maintain until death that she is inspired of God. Poor child."
"And yet she abjured!"
"Whoever lied once may lie again."
"If she abjured it was out of fear of the flames—that can be easily understood."
"She proved herself a coward! And she was thought so brave!"
"Well, in the face of the pyre one may well tremble! Just look at those fagots soaked in pitch."
"When one thinks that the whole pile will be in flames all around Joan like so much straw on fire, singeing and consuming her flesh!"
"My hair stands on end at the bare thought."
"Poor child! What a torture!"
"What else can you expect? Our seigneurs and the doctors of canon law condemn her. She must be guilty!"
"Such learned men could not be mistaken. We must believe them."
"When the Church has uttered herself we must bow down in silence. A body has religion, or has none."
"Well, I have no suspicions. I am an Armagnac and a royalist, and I detest the English rule. I looked upon Joan as upon a saint before her condemnation. Now I cannot even take pity upon her. It would be throwing discredit upon her judges. My religion as a good Catholic shuts my mouth. We must believe without reasoning."
"Did not the ecclesiastical tribunal show how merciful the Church is by accepting Joan's repentance?"
"But why did she relapse!"
"So much the worse for her if she is now burned. It will be her own doing."
"You must admit that by voluntarily going to the pyre she proves her courage. She is an intrepid girl!"