“In three or four short days, my lads, you will be employing your
tongues in a different sort from this–and I shall be there to hear.”
To my mind these were as good as dead men. How many of them
would still be alive after the rescue that was coming? Not more
than enough to amuse the executioner a short half-hour, certainly.
It turned out that the report was true. Joan had relapsed. She was
sitting there in her chains, clothed again in her male attire.
She accused nobody. That was her way. It was not in her character
to hold a servant to account for what his master had made him do,
and her mind had cleared now, and she knew that the advantage
which had been taken of her the previous morning had its origin,
not in the subordinate but in the master–Cauchon.
Here is what had happened. While Joan slept, in the early morning
of Sunday, one of the guards stole her female apparel and put her
male attire in its place. When she woke she asked for the other
dress, but the guards refused to give it back. She protested, and
said she was forbidden to wear the male dress. But they continued
to refuse. She had to have clothing, for modesty’s sake; moreover,
she saw that she could not save her life if she must fight for it
against treacheries like this; so she put on the forbidden garments,
knowing what the end would be. She was weary of the struggle,
poor thing.
We had followed in the wake of Cauchon, the Vice-Inquisitor, and
the others–six or eight–and when I saw Joan sitting there,
despondent, forlorn, and still in chains, when I was expecting to
find her situation so different, I did not know what to make of it.
The shock was very great. I had doubted the relapse perhaps;
possibly I had believed in it, but had not realized it.
Cauchon’s victory was complete. He had had a harassed and
irritated and disgusted look for a long time, but that was all gone
now, and contentment and serenity had taken its place. His purple
face was full of tranquil and malicious happiness. He went trailing
his robes and stood grandly in front of Joan, with his legs apart,
and remained so more than a minute, gloating over her and
enjoying the sight of this poor ruined creature, who had won so
lofty a place for him in the service of the meek and merciful Jesus,
Saviour of the World, Lord of the Universe–in case England kept
her promise to him, who kept no promises himself.
Presently the judges began to question Joan. One of them, named
Marguerie, who was a man with more insight than prudence,
remarked upon Joan’s change of clothing, and said:
“There is something suspicious about this. How could it have come
about without connivance on the part of others? Perhaps even
something worse?”
“Thousand devils!” screamed Cauchon, in a fury. “Will you shut
your mouth?”
“Armagnac! Traitor!” shouted the soldiers on guard, and made a
rush for Marguerie with their lances leveled. It was with the
greatest difficulty that he was saved from being run through the
body. He made no more attempts to help the inquiry, poor man.
The other judges proceeded with the questionings.
“Why have you resumed this male habit?”
I did not quite catch her answer, for just then a soldier’s halberd
slipped from his fingers and fell on the stone floor with a crash;
but I thought I understood Joan to say that she had resumed it of
her own motion.
“But you have promised and sworn that you would not go back to
it.”
I was full of anxiety to hear her answer to that question; and when
it came it was just what I was expecting. She said–quiet quietly:
“I have never intended and never understood myself to swear I
would not resume it.”
There–I had been sure, all along, that she did not know what she
was doing and saying on the platform Thursday, and this answer of
hers was proof that I had not been mistaken. Then she went on to
add this: