must deliver you up to punishment.”
And now there was another voice–it was from the other
platform–pealing solemnly above the din: Cauchon’s–reading the
sentence of death!
Joan’s strength was all spent. She stood looking about her in a
bewildered way a moment, then slowly she sank to her knees, and
bowed her head and said:
“I submit.”
They gave her no time to reconsider–they knew the peril of that.
The moment the words were out of her mouth Massieu was
reading to her the abjuration, and she was repeating the words after
him mechanically, unconsciously–and smiling; for her wandering
mind was far away in some happier world.
Then this short paper of six lines was slipped aside and a long one
of many pages was smuggled into its place, and she, noting
nothing, put her mark on it, saying, in pathetic apology, that she
did not know how to write. But a secretary of the King of England
was there to take care of that defect; he guided her hand with his
own, and wrote her name–Jehanne.
The great crime was accomplished. She had signed–what? She did
not know–but the others knew. She had signed a paper confessing
herself a sorceress, a dealer with devils, a liar, a blasphermer of
God and His angels, a lover of blood, a promoter of sedition, cruel,
wicked, commissioned of Satan; and this signature of hers bound
her to resume the dress of a woman.
There were other promises, but that one would answer, without the
others; and that one could be made to destroy her.
Loyseleur pressed forward and praised her for having done “such a
good day’s work.”
But she was still dreamy, she hardly heard.
Then Cauchon pronounced the words which dissolved the
excommunication and and restored her to her beloved Church,
with all the dear privileges of worship. Ah, she heard that! You
could see it in the deep gratitude that rose in her face and
transfigured it with joy.
But how transient was that happiness! For Cauchon, without a
tremor of pity in his voice, added these crushing words:
“And that she may repent of her crimes and repeat them no more,
she is sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, with the bread of
affliction and the water of anguish!”
Perpetual imprisonment! She had never dreamed of that–such a
thing had never been hinted to her by Loyseleur or by any other.
Loyseleur had distinctly said and promised that “all would be well
with her.” And the very last words spoken to her by Erard, on that
very platform, when he was urging her to abjure, was a straight,
unqualified promised–that if she would do it she should go free
from captivity.
She stood stunned and speechless a moment; then she
remembered, with such solacement as the thought could furnish,
that by another clear promise made by Cauchon himself–she
would at least be the Church’s captive, and have women about her
in place of a brutal foreign soldiery. So she turned to the body of
priests and said, with a sad resignation:
“Now, you men of the Church, take me to your prison, and leave
me no longer in the hands of the English”; and she gathered up her
chains and prepared to move.
But alas! now came these shameful words from Cauchon–and with
them a mocking laugh:
“Take her to the prison whence she came!”
Poor abused girl! She stood dumb, smitten, paralyzed. It was
pitiful to see. She had been beguiled, lied to, betrayed; she saw it
all now.
The rumbling of a drum broke upon the stillness, and for just one
moment she thought of the glorious deliverance promised by her
Voices–I read it in the rapture that lit her face; then she saw what
it was–her prison escort–and that light faded, never to revive
again. And now her head began a piteous rocking motion, swaying
slowly, this way and that, as is the way when one is suffering
unwordable pain, or when one’s heart is broken; then drearily she
went from us, with her face in her hands, and sobbing bitterly.
Chapter 21 Respited Only for Torture
THERE IS no certainty that any one in all Rouen was in the secret