The Executioner's Knife Part 35

CANON MAURICE (reads)--"'Eighthly: Joan, you said that you jumped down out of the tower of the Castle of Beaurevoir because you preferred death to falling into the hands of the English; and that, despite the advice of the archangel St. Michael and your saints, who ordered you not to attempt to escape or kill yourself, you persevered in your project.

"'The Church p.r.o.nounces you guilty of yielding to despair, of having contemplated homicide upon yourself, and of having criminally interpreted the law of human freedom of action.'"

Joan Darc smiles disdainfully at hearing these ecclesiastics condemn her for having endeavored to escape her enemies who sold her for ten thousand gold sous to the English.

CANON MAURICE (reads)--"'Ninthly: Joan, you said your saints promised paradise to you if you preserved your virginity and devoted yourself to G.o.d, and that you were as certain of paradise as if you were now in the enjoyment of the bliss of the blessed. You said you did not consider yourself in mortal sin because you ever heard the voice of your saints.

"'The Church p.r.o.nounces you presumptuous and headstrong in a.s.sertions that are mendacious and pernicious, and that exhale a pestilential odor.'"

Joan raises to the vaulted roof of the apartment her face beaming with faith and hope, and she hears her voices whisper to her: "Courage, holy daughter, what need you care for the vain words of these men? G.o.d has adjudged you worthy of His paradise."

CANON MAURICE (reads)--"'Tenthly: Joan, you said that the archangel St.

Michael and your saints, speaking to you in the language of Gaul, informed you that they were enemies of the English and friends of your King.

"'The Church p.r.o.nounces you superst.i.tious, a sorceress, a blasphemer of the archangel St. Michael and of Saints Marguerite and Catherine, and a contemner of love for your neighbor.

"'Eleventhly: Joan, you said that if the evil spirit had appeared under the form of St. Michael you would have been able to discover and discern the fact.

"'The Church p.r.o.nounces you idolatrous, an invoker of devils and guilty of illicit judgment.'"

Joan Darc believes she is dreaming when she hears the accusation of sorcery and demoniacal invocations. A sorceress because she affirmed she saw what she did see! A sorceress because she affirmed she heard what she did hear! A sorceress and invoker of demons because those visions appeared before her, visions that she neither invoked nor desired, and that, frightening her at first, she prayed G.o.d to keep away from her!

CANON MAURICE (reads)--"'Twelfthly: Joan, you said that if the Church would demand from you an admission contrary to the inspirations that you pretend to have received from G.o.d, you would absolutely refuse obedience, and that in all such matters you do recognize neither the judgment of the Church nor of any man on earth. You said the answer proceeded not from yourself but from G.o.d, and you persisted, although frequently reminded of the article of faith, _Unam Ecclesiam Catholicam_, and although it was proven to you that every Catholic must submit his actions and words to the Church militant, represented by the Pope and his ministers.

"'The Church p.r.o.nounces you a schismatic, an enemy of its unity and authority. It p.r.o.nounces you, besides, stiff-necked in the errors of your apostate faith.--Amen!'"

ALL THE JUDGES (in chorus, and crossing themselves)--"Amen!"

If in her loyalty, in the habitual meekness of her spirit Joan Darc admitted some of the accusations against her, she would bow before the judgment of these ecclesiastics. But after hearing the charges, the Maid remains all the more convinced of their iniquity, and resolves more strongly than ever to spurn such judges and to appeal from them to G.o.d.

The reading of the indictment being ended, Bishop Peter Cauchon approaches the Maid's seat.

BISHOP CAUCHON--"And now, Joan, you know what terrible accusations weigh upon you. The trial is hereby ended. It is now time to reflect well upon what you have heard. If after having been so often admonished by me, as well as by my other very dear brothers, the vicar of the Inquisition and other learned prelates, you should, alack! in contumely of G.o.d, in defiance of the faith and the law of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in contempt of the safety and security of Catholic conscience, still persist in your errors; should you persist in standing out as an object of horrible scandal, of infectious and disgusting pestilence, it will be, dear daughter, a great injury to your soul and your body. In the name of your soul that is imperishable, but that may be d.a.m.ned, in the name of your perishable body, I exhort you once more and for the last time, to re-enter the bosom of our sacred mother the Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, and to submit yourself to her judgment. If not, and I charitably warn you now a last time, your soul will be d.a.m.ned, d.a.m.ned to all eternity and delivered to Satan, and your body will be destroyed by fire--a thing that with my joined hands (he prostrates and crosses himself, and clasps his hands) I fervently pray our Lord to preserve you from."

JOAN DARC (makes a superhuman effort to rise and keep her feet; she succeeds by steadying her chained and shaking limbs against her seat.

She then raises her right hand and cries in a firm voice and an accent of profound and heroic conviction)--"I take heaven for my witness! I shall be condemned, I shall see the f.a.gots, the executioner ready to set them on fire; and yet I shall unto death repeat: Yes, I have said the truth. Yes, G.o.d has inspired me. Yes, from Him I expect everything, nothing from anybody else. Yes, G.o.d is my sole judge, my sole master."

Exhausted by this last effort, Joan Darc falls back upon her seat in the midst of profound silence. The ecclesiastics gather in a group with Bishop Cauchon in the center. They consult in a low voice. The prelate then approaches Joan Darc.

BISHOP CAUCHON (in a ringing voice and a gesture of malediction)--"The sentence is p.r.o.nounced: We, Peter, Bishop of Beauvais by the grace of G.o.d, p.r.o.nounce you a blasphemer and sacrilegious woman, an invoker of demons, an apostate and a heretic! We smite you with the sentence of the major and minor excommunication; we p.r.o.nounce you forever cut off from the body of our holy mother the Church; and we leave you to the secular arm which will to-morrow burn your body and cast your ashes to the wind!

Amen."

ALL THE ECCLESIASTICAL JUDGES (in chorus and making the sign of the cross)--"Amen."

JOAN DARC (sublimely inspired)--"That is your judgment. I confidently await the judgment of G.o.d!"

The jailers carry the prisoner back to her cell.

CHAPTER VI.

PHYSICAL COLLAPSE.

On the 24th of May, 1431, a great ma.s.s of people is crowding at about eight in the morning and under a brilliant springtide sun towards the cemetery of St. Audoin at Rouen. A low wall surrounds the place of burial. Within, and near the entrance of the cemetery, there rises on this morning a high scaffold with a wide platform on which a number of seats decked with violet coverings are placed. English soldiers, casqued and cuira.s.sed, and lance in hand, form a cordon that keeps the crowd at a distance. All seem to expect a great event.

The people are waiting to see Joan Darc, who is to mount the scaffold, kneel down at the feet of Bishop Cauchon and with her arms crossed on her breast abjure her past errors, deny her visions and renounce her revelations, her faith, her glory and her patriotism; in short, to make her humble, contrite and repentful submission to the sovereign judgment of the Bishop and the ecclesiastics.

Only yesterday, despite the feebleness of her body, so proud and so resolute in her answers to her accusers, Joan had cried: "Let the f.a.gots be there, let the executioner stand ready, and yet I shall repeat unto death: Yes, G.o.d has inspired me. Yes, G.o.d is my sole judge, my sole master!"

What inconceivable change has taken place in this soul, once so firm and so full of conviction? Human weakness!

After the sentence p.r.o.nounced upon her the day before by Bishop Cauchon, the heroine was transported back to her cell. The feverish exaltation that upheld her in the presence of her judges was followed by a reaction of profound dejectment. Still she was resigned to suffer death. Under these circ.u.mstances, and pretending to have obtained from the captain of the tower permission to administer to her the last consolations, Canon Loyseleur visited Joan. She received the priest with thankful joy.

Instructed by Joan on the last events, the canon broke down in tears, moans and laments, and dwelled with affected horror upon the frightful details of Joan's pending execution--shocking details: Joan was to be taken in a s.h.i.+rt, not a woman's s.h.i.+rt as she had begged for on the ground of its being longer, but in a man's s.h.i.+rt; nor was that all. The English chiefs had decided that before delivering Joan to the flames, she was to be stripped wholly naked, and fastened in that state to the stake.

From the moment Joan learned that she was to be taken to the pyre in a man's s.h.i.+rt, and was then to be bound by the executioner in full view wholly naked to the stake, Joan's mind began to wander. She collected whatever strength was left her, and although chained by the feet, hands and waist, she stood upon her straw bed and flinging herself forward, violently struck her head twice against the wall of the dungeon in a frantic attempt to break her skull and die. But the impact of the poor creature, weak, exhausted and fainting as she was, was not strong enough to produce mortal, or even dangerous results. She fell down backward upon her couch where the canon charitably held her down. He sobbed; he implored his dear daughter in Christ not to yield to blind despair. True enough, it was an abominable ordeal for so pure a soul, so chaste a body, to be exposed at first half naked, and then wholly so, absolutely naked, to the lascivious looks and obscene jeers of the soldiery and mob! No doubt the ordeal would last an hour, perhaps longer; the English would take a delight in prolonging the period of the Maid's nudity. But, alack! how was the abomination to be avoided! There was only one way, and no doubtful one, a sure way of escaping, not the shame only, but even the pyre, aye, of escaping from the hands of the English. Thanks to that means, Joan might regain her freedom, return to her family at Domremy, and enjoy a restoring rest after so many trials. And then, when she should have recovered her health, the martial maid could again don her armor, call her valiant followers to arms, and marching at their head, complete her work of driving the English out of France.

Joan Darc believed herself in a dream as she listened to the canon. His age, his tears, his moaning, the constant interest that he had taken in her since she was brought to her present dungeon--everything contributed to remove from her spirit all thought of suspicion. In a semi-stupor she questioned the canon on the means that he had in mind, from which he promised such certain deliverance.

The tempter pursued his dark scheme with infernal skill. He began by asking the heroine whether in her soul and conscience she did not look upon her judges as monsters of iniquity? She readily a.s.sented. Could she, consequently, feel herself bound by any promises that she might make to the butchers, she a prisoner, under duress? She, sold for the price of gold? No, concluded the canon, a promise made to these butchers for the purpose of escaping abominable ignominy and the horrors of burning, could never be binding upon an innocent victim. Such engagements were null.

Joan asked what the promises would be. The canon answered that it was merely a matter of renouncing _in appearance_ the errors that the tribunal charged her with; in short, to submit _in appearance_ to the judgment of the Church.

Joan's conscience revolted at the lie; to renounce the truth was to renounce G.o.d.

"Yes, but with your lips, with your lips only, and not with your heart!"

pursued the tempter. "It is simply yielding to force; it is speaking for a moment the language of the butchers, a fallacious and perfidious language, true enough; but, thanks to such a legitimate fraud, to escape from them, thus to preserve His elect to G.o.d, and to France her liberator! It is simply a mouth-renunciation, while the soul will continue to glorify all the acts inspired by heaven."

"But to promise to abjure under condition of being set free, is to bind oneself to abjure," answered Joan, disconcerted by the canon's sophism.

"And what would that matter?" argued the tempter. "What would it matter to make even a public abjuration, even kneeling at the Bishop's feet, saying to him with the lips: 'My apparitions and my visions were illusions; I have sinned in a.s.suming man's habits; I have sinned in waging war; I have sinned in refusing to submit to the judgment of the Church. I now make my submission and regret my sins.' What would such vain words matter? Did they proceed from the interior tribunal, the sacred refuge of truth with the oppressed? Would perchance, the Lord, who reads our secret thoughts, fail to read in your soul, at the very moment when you would be pretending to abjure: 'My G.o.d, You before whom nothing is hidden, I internally glorify these visions and apparitions, the revered signs of Your omnipotence! I proclaim You my only judge, Oh, my divine Master! And in Your infinite mercy You will pardon me these few idle words, drawn from me by the desire of continuing to be the instrument of Your supreme will, and by the desire of, with Your aid, driving the stranger from the sacred soil of the fatherland.' Would G.o.d fail to read these sentiments?"

Joan succ.u.mbed before the infernal tempter. Vainly did she hear her voices warn her:

"To deny the truth is to deny G.o.d! You are about to lie in the face of heaven and of men, more out of a chaste shame than out of fear to burn.

You are about to lie in the hope of regaining your freedom to finish your divine mission. Such a fraud is cowardly and criminal."

But weakened by her sufferings, exhausted in the physical and mental struggle that she had undergone, above all frightened out of her wits at the thought of her virginal body being exposed naked by the executioner to the eyes of men, and finally tempted by the prospect of freedom, of again seeing her family and perchance achieving her work of liberation, Joan shut her ears to the inflexible voice of her honor, of her faith, of her conscience, and promised Canon Loyseleur to make a public abjuration and submission to the Church, under the condition of a pledge from the Bishop that she would be set at liberty immediately after her abjuration. The canon charitably offered his services to the prisoner; he expressed his certainty of successfully conducting the negotiation, and of being able to overcome the resistance of the savage captain of the tower and secure permission to call upon the Bishop without delay.

As may be believed, Loyseleur readily obtained the permission. Towards midnight he returned with the inst.i.tutor of the process and a physician.

The latter induced the captive to take a mixture that was to serve at once as a tonic and a soporific. The mixture would enable her to sleep restfully until morning, and would give her strength for the expiatory ceremony. Joan Darc submitted to everything, saying to herself: "I shall be free to-morrow, and shall have escaped an ignominy that is worse than death."

The scaffold raised within the precincts of the cemetery of the Abbey of St. Audoin is the immediate result of Canon Loyseleur's machinations in Joan's cell. On the scaffold's s.p.a.cious platform Joan is to appear, surrounded by the ecclesiastics, and make a public abjuration.

The impatient crowd awaits the arrival of the cortege. More than half a century under the yoke of English rule, most of the people of Rouen are of the Burgundian party, and see in Joan Darc only an enemy.

Nevertheless, the astounding renown of the martial maid, her youth, her beauty, her misfortune, her glory, awaken a profound sentiment of pity for her among all, and the feeling is strongest among those who have remained French at heart and are of the Armagnac party. The purpose of Joan's public and solemn appearance is still unknown to the ma.s.s. Some say that a public exposure is to precede the death penalty, to which she is doubtlessly condemned; others, ignorant of the course of the trial, believe she is to be publicly interrogated. William Poole, the Earl of Warwick, and other English captains and prominent personages are grouped in a reserved s.p.a.ce inside the cemetery and near the scaffold.