The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

I, Jocelyn the Champion, now a centennarian as was my ancestor Amael who fought under Charles Martel and who later knew Charlemagne, wrote the above narrative, a part of which, the tragedy of Joan Darc's execution, I witnessed with my own eyes.

On the eve of her execution I arrived in Rouen from Vaucouleurs. Communication was difficult in those days between distantly located provinces. It thus happened that the tidings of Joan's captivity at Rouen and her trial did not for some time reach her family. Finally apprized thereof by public rumor, her family was anxious to learn of her fate, but, despite their desolation, they neither were able nor did they dare to undertake the long journey. I called upon Denis Laxart, the worthy relative of Joan whom I had long known intimately, and offered him to go to Rouen myself. My fervent admiration for the plebeian heroine inspired me with the resolution. Despite my advanced age, I was not frightened by the perils of the journey. But I was poor. This difficulty was overcome by Denis Laxart and several good people of Vaucouleurs. The necessary funds were scraped together, a horse was bought, and I started with my grandson at the crupper.

Arrived at Rouen on May 29, 1431, after encountering no end of difficulties, I learned of the solemn abjuration of Joan Darc and saw how her enemies pronounced her a fraud and her former friends, a coward. I was not then aware of the black plot that had brought about the apostasy; nevertheless, my own instinct and reasoning, the recollection of my frequent conversations with Denis Laxart, who had often recounted to me the details of Joan's childhood, and finally the reports of her glorious deeds that penetrated as far as Lorraine – everything combined to point out to me that an abjuration that so utterly belied the courage and loyalty of the martial maid concealed some sinister mystery.

The following day I appeared early at the market place, taking my grandson with me. We managed to stand in the front ranks of the mass that witnessed the execution and that crowded us forward. We were pushed so far forward that we stood near the benign executioner who volunteered to fashion a cross for the unhappy victim, and who in his haste dropped his knife. It fell at my grandson's feet. I took it up and shall preserve it as the emblem that is to accompany this narrative.

Immediately after the execution of Joan Darc I was the witness of a strange incident. Near myself and my grandson was a priest wrapped up in his gown and cowl. He mumbled to himself. He had watched with seeming indifference the preparations for Joan Darc's execution, until when, writhing with pain, she cried out: "Water! Water!" At these words the priest trembled. He raised his hands to heaven and murmured: "Mercy! Oh, mercy!" Finally, when with her last breath Joan Darc made the supreme invocation – "Jesus!" the priest cried out in a suffocated voice:

"I am damned!"

He immediately dropped to the ground, a prey to violent convulsions. He still lay there in a tremor when the mob left the market place to follow the executioners who were to throw the remains of Joan Darc into the Seine. Moved with pity for the man whom all others took no notice of, or considered possessed of an evil spirit, my grandson and myself raised him and took him to our inn that faced the market place. We carried him to our room and tended him. By degrees he came to himself and looked upon us with distracted eyes that seemed to reveal deep repentance and also terror, as he cried: "I am damned! I am the accomplice and instrument of the Bishop of Beauvais in the killing of Joan! God will punish me!"

That priest was the Canon Loyseleur.[118 - For the repentance of Canon Loyseleur, see The Proceedings of the Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, vol. II, p. 178.] The gowned monster did taste repentance – strange, incredible revulsion, that I never would have believed had I not myself witnessed its unquestionable evidence. The wretch was devoured with remorse; he admitted his guilt to us, and when he noticed the horror that his admissions filled us with he cried: "A curse upon the help I rendered to you, Bishop of Beauvais, assassin!" With quavering voice he asked me whether I pitied Joan. My tears answered him. He then wished to know who I was, and learning of my passionate admiration for the virgin of Gaul and my desire for the sake of her desolate family, to be informed upon what had happened, Canon Loyseleur seemed struck by a sudden thought, and asked me to wait for him at the inn that very evening. "Never," said he, "shall I be able to make amends for or expiate my crime; but I wish to place in your hands the means to smite the butchers of the victim."

That same evening Canon Loyseleur brought to me a bundle of parchments. It contained:

1. – The general confession of Joan Darc transcribed by himself on the very day when he received it, and when that great soul unveiled itself to him in all its heroic simplicity.

2. – Notes which he had taken and preserved after his interviews with the emissary of George of La Tremouille, and which revealed the plot that was concocted against Joan by the people of the Court, the captains and the ecclesiastics, before the first meeting of the heroine and Charles VII.

3. – A copy of a contemporaneous chronicle entitled "Journal of the Siege of Orleans," and another memoir written by Percival of Cagny, equerry to the Duke of Alençon, who did not leave Joan's side from the time of the raising of the siege of Orleans down to the siege of Paris. These two manuscripts were a part of the documents that Bishop Peter Cauchon had gathered to draw up the indictment.

4. – One of the minutes of the process, containing the questions put to Joan, and her answers.

5. – A complete admission and detailed account of the machinations of Loyseleur and Bishop Cauchon to capture Joan's confidence in her prison, as also of the plans they had laid during a long conversation before the trial.

These materials were given to me by the canon in the hope of enabling me some day to rehabilitate the memory of Joan Darc. As to himself, he realized that, pursued by inexorable remorse, he would soon die, or lose his senses. On that very morning he did not dare to take his seat on the platform among Joan's judges, fearing she might recognize him. The spectacle of her martyrdom and agony finally overthrew him. After depositing these manuscripts in my hands, the canon left me precipitately and with a wild look. I know not what became of him.

The next morning I left Rouen with my grandson, and once again in Vaucouleurs I proceeded to write the story of Joan Darc. Thanks to the information I received from Denis Laxart and the documents of Canon Loyseleur, I have been able to draw up the above truthful narrative. To it I have attached the executioner's knife, as an additional relic of our family.

Until now and in this country of Lorraine, the cradle of the virgin of Gaul, I have vainly sought to rehabilitate Joan in the eyes of her friends and even of her parents. All have given me the same answer that I received so often in Rouen and so many other towns:

"Despite her glory, despite her immense services rendered to France, Joan is guilty, Joan is criminal, Joan will burn in the everlasting flames of hell – THE INFALLIBLE CHURCH CONDEMNED HER!"

But the judgment of men passes – true glory is imperishable. Some day the Maid will be exalted and her murderers spat upon.

THE END

notes

1

Trial and Condemnation, and Proceedings of the Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, known as The Maid, by Jules Quicherat, after the manuscripts in the Royal Library; vol. I, p. 39.

2

The same.

3

Trial of Joan of Arc, vol. I, p. 40.

4

Trial of Joan of Arc, vol. I, p. 74.

5

Song of Merlin the Enchanter, in Villemarqué, Popular Songs of Brittany, vol. I, p. 219.

6

Villemarqué, Popular Songs of Brittany, vol. I, p. 219.

7

The citation is literal. Denis Laxart, uncle to Jeannette, testified to having heard her say: "Has it not been long prophesied that France, desolated by a woman, would be restored by a woman?" (Proceedings of the Rehabilitation of Joan of Arc, edited by Jules Quicherat, vol. II, p. 444.) The wife of Henry Rolhaire also deposed and said: "Jeannette asked: 'Have you not heard it said that France, lost by a woman, would be saved by a virgin of the marches (borders) of Lorraine, born near an oak forest?'" (The same, p. 447.)

8

"Descendet virgo dorsum sagitarii. Among other writings was found a prophecy of Merlin, speaking in this manner." – Testimony of Matthew Thomassin, given by Quicherat in the Rehabilitation, vol. III, p. 15.

9

See "The Iron Arrow Head," the tenth of this series.

10

Volume one of this series, "The Gold Sickle."

11

Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc, vol. I, p. 67.

12

Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc, vol. I, p. 87.

13

Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc, vol. I, p. 88.

14

Trial and Condemnation of Joan of Arc, vol. I, p. 88.

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