reach his heart, for he had none.
The Eucharist was brought now to that poor soul that had yearned
for it with such unutterable longing all these desolate months. It
was a solemn moment. While we had been in the deeps of the
prison, the public courts of the castle had been filling up with
crowds of the humbler sort of men and women, who had learned
what was going on in Joan’s cell, and had come with softened
hearts to do–they knew not what; to hear–they knew not what. We
knew nothing of this, for they were out of our view. And there
were other great crowds of the like caste gathered in masses
outside the castle gates. And when the lights and the other
accompaniments of the Sacrament passed by, coming to Joan in
the prison, all those multitudes kneeled down and began to pray
for her, and many wept; and when the solemn ceremony of the
communion began in Joan’s cell, out of the distance a moving
sound was borne moaning to our ears–it was those invisible
multitudes chanting the litany for a departing soul.
The fear of the fiery death was gone from Joan of Arc now, to
come again no more, except for one fleeting instant–then it would
pass, and serenity and courage would take its place and abide till
the end.
Chapter 24 Joan the Martyr
AT NINE o’clock the Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, went
forth in the grace of her innocence and her youth to lay down her
life for the country she loved with such devotion, and for the King
that had abandoned her. She sat in the cart that is used only for
felons. In one respect she was treated worse than a felon; for
whereas she was on her way to be sentenced by the civil arm, she
already bore her judgment inscribed in advance upon a
miter-shaped cap which she wore:
HERETIC, RELAPSED, APOSTATE, IDOLATER In the cart with
her sat the friar Martin Ladvenu and MaЊtre Jean Massieu. She
looked girlishly fair and sweet and saintly in her long white robe,
and when a gush of sunlight flooded her as she emerged from the
gloom of the prison and was yet for a moment still framed in the
arch of the somber gate, the massed multitudes of poor folk
murmured “A vision! a vision!” and sank to their knees praying,
and many of the women weeping; and the moving invocation for
the dying arose again, and was taken up and borne along, a
majestic wave of sound, which accompanied the doomed, solacing
and blessing her, all the sorrowful way to the place of death.
“Christ have pity! Saint Margaret have pity! Pray for her, all ye
saints, archangels, and blessed martyrs, pray for her! Saints and
angels intercede for her! From thy wrath, good Lord, deliver her! O
Lord God, save her! Have mercy on her, we beseech Thee, good
Lord!”
It is just and true what one of the histories has said: “The poor and
the helpless had nothing but their prayers to give Joan of Arc; but
these we may believe were not unavailing. There are few more
pathetic events recorded in history than this weeping, helpless,
praying crowd, holding their lighted candles and kneeling on the
pavement beneath the prison walls of the old fortress.”
And it was so all the way: thousands upon thousands massed upon
their knees and stretching far down the distances, thick-sown with
the faint yellow candle-flames, like a field starred with golden
flowers.
But there were some that did not kneel; these were the English
soldiers. They stood elbow to elbow, on each side of Joan’s road,
and walled it in all the way; and behind these living walls knelt the
multitudes.
By and by a frantic man in priest’s garb came wailing and
lamenting, and tore through the crowd and the barriers of soldiers
and flung himself on his knees by Joan’s cart and put up his hands
in supplication, crying out:
“O forgive, forgive!”
It was Loyseleur!
And Joan forgave him; forgave him out of a heart that knew
nothing but forgiveness, nothing but compassion, nothing but pity