for all that suffer, let their offense be what it might. And she had
no word of reproach for this poor wretch who had wrought day and
night with deceits and treacheries and hypocrisies to betray her to
her death.
The soldiers would have killed him, but the Earl of Warwick saved
his life. What became of him is not known. He hid himself from
the world somewhere, to endure his remorse as he might.
In the square of the Old Market stood the two platforms and the
stake that had stood before in the churchyard of St. Ouen. The
platforms were occupied as before, the one by Joan and her judges,
the other by great dignitaries, the principal being Cauchon and the
English Cardinal–Winchester. The square was packed with
people, the windows and roofs of the blocks of buildings
surrounding it were black with them.
When the preparations had been finished, all noise and movement
gradually ceased, and a waiting stillness followed which was
solemn and impressive.
And now, by order of Cauchon, an ecclesiastic named Nicholas
Midi preached a sermon, wherein he explained that when a branch
of the vine–which is the Church–becomes diseased and corrupt, it
must be cut away or it will corrupt and destroy the whole vine. He
made it appear that Joan, through her wicknedness, was a menace
and a peril to the Church’s purity and holiness, and her death
therefore necessary. When he was come to the end of his discourse
he turned toward her and paused a moment, then he said:
“Joan, the Church can no longer protect you. Go in peace!”
Joan had been placed wholly apart and conspicuous, to signify the
Church’s abandonment of her, and she sat there in her loneliness,
waiting in patience and resignation for the end. Cauchon addressed
her now. He had been advised to read the form of her abjuration to
her, and had brought it with him; but he changed his mind, fearing
that she would proclaim the truth–that she had never knowingly
abjured–and so bring shame upon him and eternal infamy. He
contented himself with admonishing her to keep in mind her
wickednesses, and repent of them, and think of her salvation. Then
he solemnly pronounced her excommunicate and cut off from the
body of the Church. With a final word he delivered her over to the
secular arm for judgment and sentence.
Joan, weeping, knelt and began to pray. For whom? Herself? Oh,
no–for the King of France. Her voice rose sweet and clear, and
penetrated all hearts with its passionate pathos. She never thought
of his treacheries to her, she never thought of his desertion of her,
she never remembered that it was because he was an ingrate that
she was here to die a miserable death; she remembered only that
he was her King, that she was his loyal and loving subject, and that
his enemies had undermined his cause with evil reports and false
charges, and he not by to defend himself. And so, in the very
presence of death, she forgot her own troubles to implore all in her
hearing to be just to him; to believe that he was good and noble
and sincere, and not in any way to blame for any acts of hers,
neither advising them nor urging them, but being wholly clear and
free of all responsibility for them. Then, closing, she begged in
humble and touching words that all here present would pray for
her and would pardon her, both her enemies and such as might
look friendly upon her and feel pity for her in their hearts.
There was hardly one heart there that was not touched–even the
English, even the judges showed it, and there was many a lip that
trembled and many an eye that was blurred with tears; yes, even
the English Cardinal’s–that man with a political heart of stone but
a human heart of flesh.
The secular judge who should have delivered judgment and
pronounced sentence was himself so disturbed that he forgot his
duty, and Joan went to her death unsentenced–thus completing
with an illegality what had begun illegally and had so continued to
the end. He only said–to the guards: