The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

Joan Darc smiles disdainfully at hearing these ecclesiastics condemn her for having endeavored to escape her enemies who sold her for ten thousand gold sous to the English.

Canon Maurice (reads) – "'Ninthly: Joan, you said your saints promised paradise to you if you preserved your virginity and devoted yourself to God, and that you were as certain of paradise as if you were now in the enjoyment of the bliss of the blessed. You said you did not consider yourself in mortal sin because you ever heard the voice of your saints.

"'The Church pronounces you presumptuous and headstrong in assertions that are mendacious and pernicious, and that exhale a pestilential odor.'"

Joan raises to the vaulted roof of the apartment her face beaming with faith and hope, and she hears her voices whisper to her: "Courage, holy daughter, what need you care for the vain words of these men? God has adjudged you worthy of His paradise."

Canon Maurice (reads) – "'Tenthly: Joan, you said that the archangel St. Michael and your saints, speaking to you in the language of Gaul, informed you that they were enemies of the English and friends of your King.

"'The Church pronounces you superstitious, a sorceress, a blasphemer of the archangel St. Michael and of Saints Marguerite and Catherine, and a contemner of love for your neighbor.

"'Eleventhly: Joan, you said that if the evil spirit had appeared under the form of St. Michael you would have been able to discover and discern the fact.

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

Joan Darc believes she is dreaming when she hears the accusation of sorcery and demoniacal invocations. A sorceress because she affirmed she saw what she did see! A sorceress because she affirmed she heard what she did hear! A sorceress and invoker of demons because those visions appeared before her, visions that she neither invoked nor desired, and that, frightening her at first, she prayed God to keep away from her!

Canon Maurice (reads) – "'Twelfthly: Joan, you said that if the Church would demand from you an admission contrary to the inspirations that you pretend to have received from God, you would absolutely refuse obedience, and that in all such matters you do recognize neither the judgment of the Church nor of any man on earth. You said the answer proceeded not from yourself but from God, and you persisted, although frequently reminded of the article of faith, Unam Ecclesiam Catholicam, and although it was proven to you that every Catholic must submit his actions and words to the Church militant, represented by the Pope and his ministers.

"'The Church pronounces you a schismatic, an enemy of its unity and authority. It pronounces you, besides, stiff-necked in the errors of your apostate faith. – Amen!'"

All the Judges (in chorus, and crossing themselves) – "Amen!"

If in her loyalty, in the habitual meekness of her spirit Joan Darc admitted some of the accusations against her, she would bow before the judgment of these ecclesiastics. But after hearing the charges, the Maid remains all the more convinced of their iniquity, and resolves more strongly than ever to spurn such judges and to appeal from them to God.

The reading of the indictment being ended, Bishop Peter Cauchon approaches the Maid's seat.

Bishop Cauchon – "And now, Joan, you know what terrible accusations weigh upon you. The trial is hereby ended. It is now time to reflect well upon what you have heard. If after having been so often admonished by me, as well as by my other very dear brothers, the vicar of the Inquisition and other learned prelates, you should, alack! in contumely of God, in defiance of the faith and the law of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in contempt of the safety and security of Catholic conscience, still persist in your errors; should you persist in standing out as an object of horrible scandal, of infectious and disgusting pestilence, it will be, dear daughter, a great injury to your soul and your body. In the name of your soul that is imperishable, but that may be damned, in the name of your perishable body, I exhort you once more and for the last time, to re-enter the bosom of our sacred mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, and to submit yourself to her judgment. If not, and I charitably warn you now a last time, your soul will be damned, damned to all eternity and delivered to Satan, and your body will be destroyed by fire – a thing that with my joined hands (he prostrates and crosses himself, and clasps his hands) I fervently pray our Lord to preserve you from."

Joan Darc (makes a superhuman effort to rise and keep her feet; she succeeds by steadying her chained and shaking limbs against her seat. She then raises her right hand and cries in a firm voice and an accent of profound and heroic conviction) – "I take heaven for my witness! I shall be condemned, I shall see the fagots, the executioner ready to set them on fire; and yet I shall unto death repeat: Yes, I have said the truth. Yes, God has inspired me. Yes, from Him I expect everything, nothing from anybody else. Yes, God is my sole judge, my sole master."

Exhausted by this last effort, Joan Darc falls back upon her seat in the midst of profound silence. The ecclesiastics gather in a group with Bishop Cauchon in the center. They consult in a low voice. The prelate then approaches Joan Darc.

Bishop Cauchon (in a ringing voice and a gesture of malediction) – "The sentence is pronounced: We, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by the grace of God, pronounce you a blasphemer and sacrilegious woman, an invoker of demons, an apostate and a heretic! We smite you with the sentence of the major and minor excommunication; we pronounce you forever cut off from the body of our holy mother the Church; and we leave you to the secular arm which will to-morrow burn your body and cast your ashes to the wind! Amen."

All the Ecclesiastical Judges (in chorus and making the sign of the cross) – "Amen."

Joan Darc (sublimely inspired) – "That is your judgment. I confidently await the judgment of God!"

The jailers carry the prisoner back to her cell.

CHAPTER VI

PHYSICAL COLLAPSE

On the 24th of May, 1431, a great mass of people is crowding at about eight in the morning and under a brilliant springtide sun towards the cemetery of St. Audoin at Rouen. A low wall surrounds the place of burial. Within, and near the entrance of the cemetery, there rises on this morning a high scaffold with a wide platform on which a number of seats decked with violet coverings are placed. English soldiers, casqued and cuirassed, and lance in hand, form a cordon that keeps the crowd at a distance. All seem to expect a great event.

The people are waiting to see Joan Darc, who is to mount the scaffold, kneel down at the feet of Bishop Cauchon and with her arms crossed on her breast abjure her past errors, deny her visions and renounce her revelations, her faith, her glory and her patriotism; in short, to make her humble, contrite and repentful submission to the sovereign judgment of the Bishop and the ecclesiastics.

Only yesterday, despite the feebleness of her body, so proud and so resolute in her answers to her accusers, Joan had cried: "Let the fagots be there, let the executioner stand ready, and yet I shall repeat unto death: Yes, God has inspired me. Yes, God is my sole judge, my sole master!"

What inconceivable change has taken place in this soul, once so firm and so full of conviction? Human weakness!

After the sentence pronounced upon her the day before by Bishop Cauchon, the heroine was transported back to her cell. The feverish exaltation that upheld her in the presence of her judges was followed by a reaction of profound dejectment. Still she was resigned to suffer death. Under these circumstances, and pretending to have obtained from the captain of the tower permission to administer to her the last consolations, Canon Loyseleur visited Joan. She received the priest with thankful joy. Instructed by Joan on the last events, the canon broke down in tears, moans and laments, and dwelled with affected horror upon the frightful details of Joan's pending execution – shocking details: Joan was to be taken in a shirt, not a woman's shirt as she had begged for on the ground of its being longer, but in a man's shirt; nor was that all. The English chiefs had decided that before delivering Joan to the flames, she was to be stripped wholly naked, and fastened in that state to the stake.

From the moment Joan learned that she was to be taken to the pyre in a man's shirt, and was then to be bound by the executioner in full view wholly naked to the stake, Joan's mind began to wander. She collected whatever strength was left her, and although chained by the feet, hands and waist, she stood upon her straw bed and flinging herself forward, violently struck her head twice against the wall of the dungeon in a frantic attempt to break her skull and die. But the impact of the poor creature, weak, exhausted and fainting as she was, was not strong enough to produce mortal, or even dangerous results. She fell down backward upon her couch where the canon charitably held her down. He sobbed; he implored his dear daughter in Christ not to yield to blind despair. True enough, it was an abominable ordeal for so pure a soul, so chaste a body, to be exposed at first half naked, and then wholly so, absolutely naked, to the lascivious looks and obscene jeers of the soldiery and mob! No doubt the ordeal would last an hour, perhaps longer; the English would take a delight in prolonging the period of the Maid's nudity. But, alack! how was the abomination to be avoided! There was only one way, and no doubtful one, a sure way of escaping, not the shame only, but even the pyre, aye, of escaping from the hands of the English. Thanks to that means, Joan might regain her freedom, return to her family at Domremy, and enjoy a restoring rest after so many trials. And then, when she should have recovered her health, the martial maid could again don her armor, call her valiant followers to arms, and marching at their head, complete her work of driving the English out of France.

Joan Darc believed herself in a dream as she listened to the canon. His age, his tears, his moaning, the constant interest that he had taken in her since she was brought to her present dungeon – everything contributed to remove from her spirit all thought of suspicion. In a semi-stupor she questioned the canon on the means that he had in mind, from which he promised such certain deliverance.

The tempter pursued his dark scheme with infernal skill. He began by asking the heroine whether in her soul and conscience she did not look upon her judges as monsters of iniquity? She readily assented. Could she, consequently, feel herself bound by any promises that she might make to the butchers, she a prisoner, under duress? She, sold for the price of gold? No, concluded the canon, a promise made to these butchers for the purpose of escaping abominable ignominy and the horrors of burning, could never be binding upon an innocent victim. Such engagements were null.

Joan asked what the promises would be. The canon answered that it was merely a matter of renouncing in appearance the errors that the tribunal charged her with; in short, to submit in appearance to the judgment of the Church.

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

"Yes, but with your lips, with your lips only, and not with your heart!" pursued the tempter. "It is simply yielding to force; it is speaking for a moment the language of the butchers, a fallacious and perfidious language, true enough; but, thanks to such a legitimate fraud, to escape from them, thus to preserve His elect to God, and to France her liberator! It is simply a mouth-renunciation, while the soul will continue to glorify all the acts inspired by heaven."

"But to promise to abjure under condition of being set free, is to bind oneself to abjure," answered Joan, disconcerted by the canon's sophism.

"And what would that matter?" argued the tempter. "What would it matter to make even a public abjuration, even kneeling at the Bishop's feet, saying to him with the lips: 'My apparitions and my visions were illusions; I have sinned in assuming man's habits; I have sinned in waging war; I have sinned in refusing to submit to the judgment of the Church. I now make my submission and regret my sins.' What would such vain words matter? Did they proceed from the interior tribunal, the sacred refuge of truth with the oppressed? Would perchance, the Lord, who reads our secret thoughts, fail to read in your soul, at the very moment when you would be pretending to abjure: 'My God, You before whom nothing is hidden, I internally glorify these visions and apparitions, the revered signs of Your omnipotence! I proclaim You my only judge, Oh, my divine Master! And in Your infinite mercy You will pardon me these few idle words, drawn from me by the desire of continuing to be the instrument of Your supreme will, and by the desire of, with Your aid, driving the stranger from the sacred soil of the fatherland.' Would God fail to read these sentiments?"

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

"To deny the truth is to deny God! You are about to lie in the face of heaven and of men, more out of a chaste shame than out of fear to burn. You are about to lie in the hope of regaining your freedom to finish your divine mission. Such a fraud is cowardly and criminal."

But weakened by her sufferings, exhausted in the physical and mental struggle that she had undergone, above all frightened out of her wits at the thought of her virginal body being exposed naked by the executioner to the eyes of men, and finally tempted by the prospect of freedom, of again seeing her family and perchance achieving her work of liberation, Joan shut her ears to the inflexible voice of her honor, of her faith, of her conscience, and promised Canon Loyseleur to make a public abjuration and submission to the Church, under the condition of a pledge from the Bishop that she would be set at liberty immediately after her abjuration. The canon charitably offered his services to the prisoner; he expressed his certainty of successfully conducting the negotiation, and of being able to overcome the resistance of the savage captain of the tower and secure permission to call upon the Bishop without delay.

As may be believed, Loyseleur readily obtained the permission. Towards midnight he returned with the institutor of the process and a physician. The latter induced the captive to take a mixture that was to serve at once as a tonic and a soporific. The mixture would enable her to sleep restfully until morning, and would give her strength for the expiatory ceremony. Joan Darc submitted to everything, saying to herself: "I shall be free to-morrow, and shall have escaped an ignominy that is worse than death."

The scaffold raised within the precincts of the cemetery of the Abbey of St. Audoin is the immediate result of Canon Loyseleur's machinations in Joan's cell. On the scaffold's spacious platform Joan is to appear, surrounded by the ecclesiastics, and make a public abjuration.

The impatient crowd awaits the arrival of the cortege. More than half a century under the yoke of English rule, most of the people of Rouen are of the Burgundian party, and see in Joan Darc only an enemy. Nevertheless, the astounding renown of the martial maid, her youth, her beauty, her misfortune, her glory, awaken a profound sentiment of pity for her among all, and the feeling is strongest among those who have remained French at heart and are of the Armagnac party. The purpose of Joan's public and solemn appearance is still unknown to the mass. Some say that a public exposure is to precede the death penalty, to which she is doubtlessly condemned; others, ignorant of the course of the trial, believe she is to be publicly interrogated. William Poole, the Earl of Warwick, and other English captains and prominent personages are grouped in a reserved space inside the cemetery and near the scaffold.

Presently a distant and increasing noise announces the approach of the train. The crowd presses and becomes more compact outside the cemetery. The procession draws near, escorted by English archers. At its head march the Cardinal of Winchester in the Roman purple, and the Bishop of Beauvais with a gold mitre on his head, a gold crosier in his hand and over his shoulders the chasuble of violet silk, resplendent in embroidery. Behind them and in his monk's frock comes the inquisitor John Lemaitre, together with Peter of Estivet, the official institutor of the process, William Erard and two registrars, carrying parchments and writing portfolios.

A few steps behind them, and sustained by two penitents whose grey robes, covering them from head to foot, are pierced with two holes at the elevation of their eyes, Joan advances slowly. Her weakness is extreme, and although her eyes are wide open she does not seem to be wholly awake; she still seems under the effect of the soporific and tonic of the night before. She seems to look without seeing, and to hear with indifference the hisses of the mob that, incited by the example of the English soldiers, makes hostile demonstrations against the victim. On Joan's head is a high mitre of black pasteboard which bears in large letters the following words: "Heretic," "Idolater," "Apostate." A long robe of coarse black wool envelops her from the neck down to her bare feet. She halts for a moment before the scaffold, while the Cardinal, the Bishop and other prelates take their seats upon it. At a signal from one of the registrars, the two penitents, holding Joan under the arms, help her to ascend the stairs of the scaffold. The sky is this day of an admirable clearness; the sun shines brilliantly; the pleasant warmth of its rays penetrates and gradually warms Joan Darc, who still shivers from the dampness of the subterraneous dungeon in which she has so long lain buried night and day. She inhales the bracing and pure air with delight, and in full draughts. The atmosphere of her cell was so heavy, so fetid! She seems to revive; her chilled and clogged blood courses anew with the delight of life; she experiences an indescribable sense of happiness at the contemplation of that azure sky bathed in light, and at the sight of the green grass of the cemetery, studded here and there with spring flowers. At a little distance stands a clump of trees, near the abbey. The birds chirp in their foliage, the insects hum – everything seems to sing and express delight on that sweet May morning. The sight of nature that Joan has so long been deprived of – she who was from early infancy accustomed to live on the meadows and in the woods – transports her into a sort of ecstasy. She forgets her sufferings, her martyrdom, her sentence and even the abjuration that she is about to pronounce. If her thoughts at all fall upon these topics, the only effect is the pleasurable reminder that she is soon to be free. Oh, free! to be free! To see her village again! the oak forest, the Fountain of the Fairies, the smiling and shady banks of the Meuse! To see again her family, her friends, and, renouncing the bitter illusions of glory, escaping the royal ingratitude, the hypocrisy, the hatred and the envy of men, quietly spend her days in Domremy at her rustic labors as in the happy days of yore! And that, all that at the price of a few words pronounced before her butcher-judges, those monsters of iniquity! Oh, at this moment of physical exaltation Joan would sign her abjuration with her own blood. Her heart-beats, pulsating with hope, smother within her the austere voices of her honor and her faith. In vain do these whisper to her: "Be not faint-hearted! Bravely uphold the truth in the teeth of those false priests, and you will be delivered from your trials, not for a day, but for all eternity!" These voices are not now listened to; her physical delight is too vast. Suddenly she is recalled to her condition by the voice of Bishop Cauchon who severely says to her:

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

Joan Darc kneels down without removing her eyes from the beautiful blue of the sky, from the radiant light of the sun from which she seeks to draw the strength necessary to persevere in her resolution of abjuring. A profound silence falls upon the crowd, the front ranks of which can hear the words uttered on the scaffold, and Bishop Cauchon, crossing himself, proceeds:

"My very dear brothers, the Lord said it to his apostle St. John, the palm tree cannot of itself produce fruit if it does not live. Thus, my very dear brothers, you must persevere in the true life of our holy mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, which our Lord Jesus Christ built with his right hand. But, alack! there are perverse souls, abominable and idolatrous (he points at Joan Darc) filled with heretical crimes, who rise with an audacity that is truly infernal against the unity of our holy Church, to the great scandal and to the painful horror of all good believers. (To Joan Darc with a menacing voice:) There you are now upon a scaffold, in the face of heaven and of men. Is the light to enter at last your haughty and diabolical soul? Will you at last submit in all humbleness your words and acts to the Church militant, the enormities of your acts! your monstrous words! according to the infallible judgment of the priests of the Lord? Reflect and answer! If not, the Church will abandon you to the secular arm and your body will go up in the flames of the pyre."

These words produce a deep commotion among the crowd. The majority of those present are hostile to Joan Darc. A small number feel sincere pity for her. These various sentiments find expression in cries, imprecations and charitable utterances:

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

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