CHAPTER X
TO THE FLAMES!
The scene changes. After the last interrogatory of Joan the priests proceed to Bishop Cauchon in order to inform him of the issue of their visit to the prisoner – a result that the prelate expects, so much so that he has convoked a sufficient number of judges to meet in the chapel of the Archbishop's palace at Rouen in order to proceed with the final sentence of the relapsed sinner. All the summoned prelates are assembled and in their seats in the chapel. Bishop Cauchon, seated in the center of the choir, presides, and orders silence with a gesture.
Bishop Cauchon – "My very dear brothers, Joan has fallen back into her damnable errors, and in contempt of her solemn abjuration, pronounced in the face of God and His Holy Writ, not only has she resumed her male attire, but she again stubbornly maintains that all that she has done and said was said and done by divine inspiration! I now call for your views, in the order of precedence, upon the fate of the said Joan who is now charged with having relapsed, reserving to myself the right of convoking you again, should I deem it necessary."
Archdeacon Nicolas of Venderesse – "The said Joan should be given over to the secular arm, to be burned alive as a relapsed sinner."
Abbot Agidie – "Joan is a relapsed heretic, no doubt about it. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that a second abjuration should be proposed to her, under pain of being delivered to the secular arm."
Canon John Pinchon – "Joan has relapsed; I shall adhere to whatever plan of punishment my very dear brothers may decide upon."
Canon William Erard – "I pronounce the said Joan a relapsed sinner and deserving of the pyre."
Chaplain Robert Gilbert – "Joan should be burned as a relapsed sinner and heretic."
Abbot of St. Audoin – "The woman is a relapsed sinner. Let her abjure a second time or be condemned."
Archdeacon John of Castillone – "Let the relapsed sinner be delivered to the secular arm."
Canon Ermangard – "I demand the exemplary death of Joan."
Deacon Boucher – "Joan should be sentenced as a relapsed one."
Prior of Longueville – "That is my opinion. She should be burned alive."
Father Giffard – "I think the relapsed sinner should be sentenced without delay."
Father Haiton – "I pronounce the said Joan a relapsed sinner. I am for her speedy punishment, provided, however, she refuses to abjure a second time."
Canon Marguerie – "Joan is a relapsed sinner. Let her be delivered up to secular justice."
Canon John of L'Epee – "I am of my brother's opinion. She should be burned to death."
Canon Garin – "I think so, too."
Canon Gastinel – "Let us give up the relapsed sinner to the pyre."
Canon Pascal – "That is my opinion. Let her be burned to death."
Father Houdenc – "The ridiculous explanations of the woman are to me an ample proof that she has always been an idolatress and a heretic. Besides that, she is a relapsed sinner. I demand that she be delivered to the secular arm without delay."
Master John of Nibat – "The said Joan is impenitent and a relapsed sinner. Let her undergo her punishment."
Father Fabre – "A heretic by habit, hardened in her errors, a rebel to the Church, the body of the said Joan should be delivered to the flames, and her ashes cast to the winds."
Abbot of Montemart – "I hold as my brother. Only I am of the opinion that she should be given a second chance to abjure."
Father Guelon – "That is my opinion."
Canon Coupequesne – "Mine also."
Canon Guillaume – "Let the said Joan be offered a second chance to retract. If she refuses, then death."
Canon Maurice – "I favor such a second summons, although I do not expect good results from it."
Doctor William of Bandibosc – "I side with my very dear brother."
Deacon Nicolas Caval – "The relapsed sinner should be treated without pity, according to her deserts. She should be burned to death."
Canon Loyseleur – "The said Joan should be delivered to the temporal flames."
Thomas of Courcelles – "The woman is a heretic and relapsed sinner. She may be summoned a second time, and told that if she persists in her errors, she has nothing to expect in this world."
Father John Ledoux – "Although such a second attempt seems to me idle, it might be tried so as to demonstrate the inexhaustible kindness of our mother the Church."
Master John Tiphaine – "I favor this second, though idle, attempt."
Deacon Colombelle – "I am of the same opinion."
Isambard of la Pierre – "Secular justice will take its course if the said Joan refuses to abjure a second time."
From these opinions it transpires that some of the judges demand immediate death, while others, and these are a small majority, favor a second abjuration, although the opinion is general that the attempt is vain. The judges have learned from their accomplices that the heroine is now determined to seek in death the expiation of the confessions which only fear drew from her. More straightforward and frank in his projects, moreover, convinced of the success of his plan, the Bishop sums up the deliberation and absolutely opposes the idea of attempting a second abjuration. Do not most of those who favor the measure consider it idle? Why, then, try it? And even if it were certain that the relapsed sinner would abjure again, the performance would have a deplorable effect. Did not the soldiers and the people, exasperated at the clemency of the Church, cry "Treason!" and seem ready to riot at the time of the first abjuration? Is it wise to incur and provoke a terrible turmoil in the town? Has not the Church given evidence of her maternal charity by admitting Joan to penitence, despite her perverse heresy? How was this act of benevolence rewarded by her? It was rewarded with renewed and redoubled boastfulness, audacity and impiety! Bishop Cauchon closes, conjuring his very dear brothers in the name of the dignity of the Church, in the name of the peace of the town, in the name of their conscience, to declare without superfluous verbiage that the said Joan is a relapsed sinner, and, as such, is given over to the secular arm, in order to be led to death the next day, after being publicly excommunicated by the Church. The judges yield to the views of the prelate. The registrar enters the sentence of death, and the session rises.
Peter Cauchon is the first to leave the chapel. Outside he meets several English captains who are waiting for the issue of the deliberations. One of them, the Earl of Warwick, says to the prelate:
"Well, what has been decided shall be done with the witch?"
"Farewell! It is done!" answers the Bishop with glee.
"The Maid – ".
"Shall be burned to-morrow – burned to death in public," interrupts Bishop Cauchon.
CHAPTER XI
THE PYRE
During the evening of May 29, 1431, the rumor spreads through Rouen that the relapsed sinner is to be burned to death on the following day. That same night carpenters raise the necessary scaffoldings while others build the pyre and plant the stake. Early the next morning companies of English archers form a cordon around the market-place, where Joan Darc is to be executed, and a double file extends into one of the streets that runs into the place. The two files of soldiers leave a wide space between them, connecting the street with the vacant area left around the scaffoldings. These are three in number, the highest of the three being at a little distance from the other two. On one of these, the one to the right, which is covered with purple cloth, rises a daised seat of crimson, ornamented with tufts of white feathers and fringed with gold. A row of seats equally decked extends on both sides of the central and daised throne, which is reached by several steps covered with rich tapestry. The scaffold to the left is of the same dimensions as the first, but it, as well as the benches thereon, is draped in black. The last of the three scaffolds consists of solid masonry about ten feet high, broad at the bottom, and ending in a narrow platform in the middle of which stands a stake furnished with iron chains and clamps. The platform is reached by a narrow set of stairs that is lost to sight in the midst of an enormous pile of fagots mixed with straw and saturated with bitumen and sulphur. The executioners have just heaped up the combustibles on the four sides of the pile of masonry. Tall poles, fastened in the ground close to the pyre bear banners on which the following legends are to be read in large white letters on a black ground:
"Joan, who had herself called the Maid, condemned to be burned alive."
"Falsifier, misleader, and deceiver of the people."
"Soothsayer, superstitious, blasphemer of God."
"Presumptuous, apostate from the faith of Jesus Christ, idolatress, cruel, dissolute."
"Invoker of devils."
"Schismatic, relapsed."117
At eight all the bells of Rouen begin tolling the funeral knell. Poor Joan, she loved the bells so well in her childhood! The May sun, that same sun that shone upon the first defeat of the English before Orleans, pure and luminous, floods the three scaffolds with its light. The crowd grows thicker around the space kept vacant by the archers; other spectators are grouped at the windows and on the balconies of the old frame houses with pointed gables that enclose the market place. Presently flags and plumes are seen waving, the steel of the casques, the gold and precious stones of the mitres and crosiers are seen shining between the two files of archers. The casqued and mitred gentry are the English captains and the prelates. Prominent among them is the Cardinal of Winchester, Clad in the Roman purple and followed by the Bishop of Boulogne and the Bishop of Beauvais, Peter Cauchon. Behind them come the Earl of Warwick and other noble captains. Slowly and majestically they ascend the stairs of the platform to the right of the pyre. The Cardinal takes his seat upon the dais, while the other dignitaries distribute themselves to his right and left. The other scaffold, that is draped in black, is occupied by the judges of the process, its institutor, its assessors and its registrars.
The appearance and arrival of these illustrious, learned or holy personages does not satisfy the gaping crowd; the condemned girl has not yet appeared. Menacing clamors begin to circulate. These are loudest among the soldiers and the Burgundian partisans, who say:
"Will the Bishop keep his promise this time? Woe to him if he trifles with us."
"Will the witch be burned at last?"
"The fagots are ready; the executioners are holding the lighted wicks."
"She ought to be burned twice over, the infamous relapsed sinner!"
"She had the brazenness to declare that she abjured under the pressure of force! She persists in declaring herself inspired!"
"What an insolent liar! By St. George! could she ever have vanquished us without the assistance of the devil, us the best archers in the world? I was at the battle of Patay, where the best men of England were mowed down. I saw whole legions of demons rush upon us at her command. We could be vanquished only by such witchery."
"Those demons, sir archer, were French soldiers!"
"Blood and death! Do you imagine plain soldiers are able to beat us? They were demons, by St. George! real horned and clawed demons, armed with flaming swords – they plunged over our heads and pelted us with stones and balls!"
"It might have been the furious projectiles from some artillery pieces that were masked behind some hedge, sir archer."
"Artillery pieces of Satan, yes; but of France, no!"
"As true as our Cardinal has his red hat on his head, if the strumpet of the Armagnacs is not burned this time, myself and the other archers of my company will roast Bishop Cauchon together with all his tonsured brethren."
"Ha, ha, ha, ha! That is well said, my Hercules! To roast Bishop Cauchon like a pig! That would be a funny spectacle!"
"They are taking long! Death to the witch!"
"Do they expect us to sleep here to-night?"
"To the fagots with the heretic!"
"Death to the relapsed sinner!"
"To the pyre with the invoker of demons! The strumpet! Death to Joan!"
"She cheated the people!"
"She denies the religion of Jesus Christ!"
"To the pyre with the idolatress! The apostate! To the pyre with her, quick and soon!"
Such are the clamors of the English and the partisans of Burgundy. The royalists or Armagnacs are much less numerous. A few of them, especially women, experience a return of pity for Joan Darc, whose abjuration incensed all those who believed her inspired. With some this indignation still is uppermost and in full force. As these sentiments are indicative of sympathy, they are not uttered aloud but whispered out of fear of the English.
"Well, though the Maid's strength once failed her, it will not fail her to-day."
"It would seem that she had not lied to us. She will now maintain until death that she is inspired of God. Poor child."
"And yet she abjured!"
"Whoever lied once may lie again."
"If she abjured it was out of fear of the flames – that can be easily understood."
"She proved herself a coward! And she was thought so brave!"
"Well, in the face of the pyre one may well tremble! Just look at those fagots soaked in pitch."
"When one thinks that the whole pile will be in flames all around Joan like so much straw on fire, singeing and consuming her flesh!"
"My hair stands on end at the bare thought."
"Poor child! What a torture!"
"What else can you expect? Our seigneurs and the doctors of canon law condemn her. She must be guilty!"
"Such learned men could not be mistaken. We must believe them."
"When the Church has uttered herself we must bow down in silence. A body has religion, or has none."
"Well, I have no suspicions. I am an Armagnac and a royalist, and I detest the English rule. I looked upon Joan as upon a saint before her condemnation. Now I cannot even take pity upon her. It would be throwing discredit upon her judges. My religion as a good Catholic shuts my mouth. We must believe without reasoning."
"Did not the ecclesiastical tribunal show how merciful the Church is by accepting Joan's repentance?"
"But why did she relapse!"
"So much the worse for her if she is now burned. It will be her own doing."
"You must admit that by voluntarily going to the pyre she proves her courage. She is an intrepid girl!"
"She is simply displaying her rebellion and idolatrous boastfulness."
"Did not Joan Darc defeat the English in a score of battles? Did she not have the King consecrated at Rheims? Answer!"
"What you say is true. But our seigneurs the bishops judge such matters differently, and better than we could. This is the way I reason, and it is as simple as correct: The Church is infallible; the Church condemns Joan; consequently Joan is guilty."
This method of reasoning, which sways the minds of the more orthodox, prevails over the timid and rare utterances that betoken interest in and sympathy for Joan; she is destined to behold even those who had remained French under English rule led astray by the recent Pharisees, and impassibly assist at her execution, the same as her master Jesus, who, sentenced to a malefactor's death, saw the poor and suffering people whom he loved so well, look gapingly on at the execution of a sentence of death that was also pronounced by the holy doctors of the law and by the priests of his time.
Suddenly a deep commotion is seen swaying the mob. It announces the approach of the condemned woman.
Standing on a cart drawn by a horse, Joan Darc is clad in a "san benito," a long black gown painted over with tongues of flame, and bearing on her head a pasteboard mitre on which are printed the words: "Idolatress," "Heretic," "Relapsed Sinner." The monk Isambard of La Pierre, one of her judges, stands near her on the wagon and imparts to her the last consolations. She seems to listen to him, but his tokens of compassion reach her ear only as a confused sound. She no longer expects aught from man. Her face, raised to heaven, looks into infinite space. She feels detached from earth, she has shaken off her last human terrors. For a moment she is overcome with fear. "Oh!" cries she, sobbing, "must my body, so clean of all stain, be destroyed by fire! I would prefer to be beheaded!" But after this last cry, drawn from her by the dread of bodily pain, her soul resumes its mastery, and the virgin of Gaul proceeds resolutely to the pyre. The wagon stops at the foot of the platform on which the Cardinal of Winchester, the two Bishops and the captains are enthroned, in their mitres and their casques.
The monk Isambard of La Pierre alights from the cart and motions Joan Darc to follow him. He assists her with his arm, seeing that the length of her robe impedes her movements. The unhappy girl walks with difficulty. Arrived before the main platform, the monk addresses the victim:
"Joan, kneel down, to receive in a humble posture the excommunication and sentence that Monseigneur the Bishop of Beauvais is to pronounce upon you."
Joan Darc kneels down in the dust at the foot of the platform that is covered with purple. Bishop Peter Cauchon rises, bows to the Cardinal of Winchester, and advances to the edge of the platform.
From the ranks of the English soldiers the cries are heard:
"The devil take any further prayers!"
"On with the execution!"
"Is it a new scheme to keep the strumpet from roasting? We have had enough dilly-dallying!"
"Look out, Bishop! You shall not cheat us this time!"
"To the pyre, without further ado! To the pyre with the sorceress! Death to the girl or to the Bishop!"
Bishop Cauchon silences the growing tumult with a significant gesture and says in a sonorous voice: "My very dear brothers, if a member suffers, the apostle said to the Corinthians, the whole body suffers. Thus when heresy infects one member of our holy Church, it is urgent to separate it from all others, lest its rottenness contaminate the mystical body of our Lord. The sacred institutions have decided, my very dear brothers, that, in order to free the faithful from the poison of the heretics, these vipers may not be allowed to devour the bosom of our mother the Church. Wherefore we, Bishop of Beauvais, by divine grace, assisted by the learned and very reverend John Lemaitre and John Graverant, Inquisitors of the faith, say to you Joan, commonly styled the Maid: – We justly pronounced you idolatrous, a soothsayer, an invoker of devils, bloodthirsty, dissolute, schismatic and heretic. You abjured your crimes and voluntarily signed this abjuration with your own hand. But you quickly returned to your damnable errors, like the dog returns to his vomit. On account of this do we now excommunicate you and pronounce you a relapsed heretic. We sentence you to be extirpated from the midst of the faithful like a rotten, leprous member, and we deliver you, and abandon you, and cast you off into the hands of secular justice, and request it that, apart from your death and the mutilation of your members, it treat you with moderation!"
The sentence is received with an explosion of shouts of ferocious joy. The English soldiers signify their satisfaction. The mob looks at Joan Darc with horror. One of the assessors descends from the platform and speaks to Isambard in a low voice, whereupon the latter turns to Joan:
"You have heard your sentence, rise, my daughter."
Joan Darc rises, and pointing to heaven as if taking the spheres for her witness, says in a loud voice and with an accent of crushing reproach to Bishop Cauchon, who remains standing near the edge of the platform above her:
"Bishop! Bishop! I die at your hands!"
Despite his audacity, Peter Cauchon trembles, grows pale, bows his head before the girl's anathema, and hastens to resume his seat near the Cardinal.
Two executioners draw near at the words of the prelate consigning Joan Darc to the secular powers. Each seizes her by an arm and they lead her to the pyre, Isambard following.
"Father," says Joan to the latter, "I wish to have a cross, so as to die contemplating it."
The request being overheard by several English soldiers, they answer:
"You need no cross, relapsed sinner!"
"Witch! To the fagots with you!"
"You only want to gain time!"
"We have had enough delays – death to the heretic!"
"To the fagots! To the fagots!"
The monk Isambard says a few words in the ear of the assessor; the latter leaves hurriedly in the direction of a neighboring church. One of the two executioners, a fellow with a blood-stained apron and a hardened face, who also overhears Joan's request, feels deeply affected. Tears are seen to gather in his eyes. He pulls his knife from his belt, and cuts in two a stick that he holds in his hand; in his hurry he drops his knife to the ground, takes a string from his pocket, ties the two pieces of wood in the shape of a rude cross, roughly thrusts aside two English soldiers who stand in his way, and then, handing the cross to the monk, falls back a few steps, contemplating the victim with something akin to adoration.
The monk passes the cross to Joan Darc, who, seizing it with transport and taking it to her lips, says: "Thank you, Father!"
"I have sent to the Church of St. Ouen for a large crucifix bearing the image of our Savior. It will be held at a distance before your eyes as long as possible. Address your prayers to Jesus Christ," the monk answered in a low voice.
"Tell them to hold it high so that I may see the image of the Savior to the very end."
Again cries break out from the ranks of the English soldiers:
"Will there ever be an end of this?"
"What is the tonsured fellow whispering to the witch?"
"Let him travel to the devil in her company!"
"To the fagots with the witch, and quickly, too!"
"To the flames, both the monk and the Maid!"
Led to the foot of the pyre, Joan Darc measures its height with her eyes and is unable to suppress a shudder; the executioners wave their torches in the air in order to enliven their flames; two of them precede the victim to the masonry platform within the pile of fagots; they cover it up with straw and twigs, the top layer of the heaped-up combustibles; they then hold up the iron clamps that are fastened to the stake.
"Climb up this way," says one of the executioners to Joan Darc, pointing to the stairs, "you will not come down again, witch!"
"I shall accompany you, my dear daughter, to the top of the pyre," says the monk.
Joan Darc slowly ascends the steps, greatly embarrassed in her movements by the folds of her gown, and reaches the top of the pyre. A tremendous shout breaks forth from the mob. When the noise subsides, Joan cries out aloud: "God alone inspired my actions!"
Hisses and furious imprecations drown her voice. The Cardinal of Winchester, the Bishops, judges, and captains rise simultaneously so as to obtain a better view of the execution. After placing Joan standing with her back against the stake, one of the executioners fastens her to it by the waist and neck with iron carcans; a chain holds her feet; only her hands remain free, and with them she clasps the rough wooden cross that one of the English executioners has just fashioned for her, and that she holds close to her lips. A priest in a surplice, carrying one of those large silver crucifixes usually borne at the head of processions, arrives in a hurry; he places himself at a distance opposite the pyre and holds up the crucifix as high as his arms allow him. It is the crucifix that the monk Isambard has sent for. He points it out to Joan Darc. She turns her head towards it and keeps her eyes fastened upon the image of Christ.
"Come, reverend Father," says one of the executioners to the monk Isambard, "do not stay here. The flames are about to shoot up."
"In a moment," answers the monk; "I shall follow you. I only wish to finish the prayer that I began."
"I shall make you come down faster than you would like, my reverend mumbler of prayers," observes the executioner in a low voice.
The two executioners descend from the platform of the pyre; the monk administers to Joan Darc the supreme consolations.
Suddenly a dry and lively crackling is heard from the base of the pyre, followed by puffs of smoke and thin tongues of flame.
"Father!" cries Joan Darc anxiously, "descend! Descend quickly! The pyre is on fire!"
Such is the sublime adieu of the victim to one of her judges!
The monk descends precipitately, casting an angry look at the executioners. These light the pyre at several places. Volumes of black smoke rise upward, and envelop Joan Darc from the public gaze. The fire glistens; it runs and twines itself through the lower layers of the fagots; presently the pile is all on fire; the flames rise; they are fanned by the breeze that blows away the cloud of smoke, and Joan Darc is again exposed to view. The fire reaches the straw and twigs on top of the platform on which her feet rest. Her gown begins to smoke. Firmly held by the triple iron bands that clasp her neck, waist and feet, she writhes and utters a piercing cry:
"Water! Water!"
A second later, as if regretting the vain appeal for mercy that pain drew from her, she exclaims:
"It is God who inspired me!"
At that moment Joan Darc's gown takes fire and the flames that flare up from it join the hundred other lambent tongues that shoot upward. From the midst of the tall furnace a voice in a weird accent is heard to exclaim:
"JESUS!"
The virgin of Gaul has expiated her immortal glory.
The flames subside, and finally go out. A smoldering brasier surrounds the base of the masonry pile that served as the center for the pyre. At its top, and held fast by the iron clamps fastened to the charred and smoking stake, is seen a blackened, shapeless, nameless something – all that is left of the Maid.
The two executioners place a ladder on the side of the stone pile; they climb up, strike down with their axes the members of her who was Joan Darc, and with the help of long iron forks hurl them all down into the brasier. Other executioners lay fresh fagots on the heap. Tall flames re-rise. When the second fire is wholly extinguished nothing remains but reddish ashes interspersed with charred human bones, a skull among them. The ashes and bones are gathered by the executioners and thrown into a wooden box, which they lay on a hand-barrow, and, followed by a large and howling mob, the executioners proceed to the banks of the Seine, into which they throw the remains of the redeeming angel of France.
Finally, the Cardinal, the Bishops, the captains and the ecclesiastical judges leave the market place of Rouen in procession, in the same order that they had entered. They have gloated over the death of Joan Darc. The justice of the courtiers, of the warriors and of the infallible clergy is satisfied.