The Great Events by Famous Historians [Volumes 1-14]

Might it be in this moment of universal tenderness, of tears, of contagious weakness, that the unhappy girl, softened, and relapsing into the mere woman, confessed that she saw clearly she had erred, and that, apparently, she had been deceived when promised deliverance? This is a point on which we cannot implicitly rely on the interested testimony of the English. Nevertheless, it would betray scant knowledge of human nature to doubt, with her hopes so frustrated, her having wavered in her faith. Whether she confessed to this effect in words is uncertain; but I will confidently affirm that she owned it in thought.

Meanwhile the judges, for a moment put out of countenance, had recovered their usual bearing, and the Bishop of Beauvais, drying his eyes, began to read the act of condemnation. He reminded the guilty one of all her crimes, of her schism, idolatry, invocation of demons, how she had been admitted to repentance, and how, "seduced by the Prince of Lies, she had fallen, O grief! 'like the dog which returns to his vomit.' Therefore, we pronounce you to be a rotten limb, and, as such, to be lopped off from the Church. We deliver you over to the secular power, praying it at the same time to relax its sentence and to spare you death and the mutilation of your members."

Deserted thus by the Church, she put her whole trust in God. She asked for the cross. An Englishman handed her a cross which he made out of a stick; she took it, rudely fashioned as it was, with not less devotion, kissed it, and placed it under her garments, next to her skin. But what she desired was the crucifix belonging to the Church, to have it before her eyes till she breathed her last. The good huissier Massieu and Brother Isambart interfered with such effect that it was brought her from St. Sauveur's. While she was embracing this crucifix, and Brother Isambart was encouraging her, the English began to think all this exceedingly tedious; it was now noon at least; the soldiers grumbled, and the captains called out: "What's this, priest; do you mean us to dine here?"

Then, losing patience, and without waiting for the order from the bailiff, who alone had authority to dismiss her to death, they sent two constables to take her out of the hands of the priests. She was seized at the foot of the tribunal by the men-at-arms, who dragged her to the executioner with the words, "Do thy office." The fury of the soldiery filled all present with horror; and many there, even of the judges, fled the spot, that they might see no more.

When she found herself brought down to the market-place, surrounded by English, laying rude hands on her, nature asserted her rights and the flesh was troubled. Again she cried out, "O Rouen, thou art then to be my last abode!" She said no more, and, in this hour of fear and trouble, did not sin with her lips.

She accused neither her King nor her holy ones. But when she set foot on the top of the pile, on viewing this great city, this motionless and silent crowd, she could not refrain from exclaiming, "Ah! Rouen, Rouen, much do I fear you will suffer from my death!" She who had saved the people, and whom that people deserted, gave voice to no other sentiment when dying—admirable sweetness of soul!—than that of compassion for it.

She was made fast under the infamous placard, mitred with a mitre on which was read, "Heretic, relapser, apostate, idolater."

And then the executioner set fire to the pile. She saw this from above and uttered a cry. Then, as the brother who was exhorting her paid no attention to the fire, forgetting herself in her fear for him, she insisted on his descending.

The proof that up to this period she had made no express recantation is, that the unhappy Cauchon was obliged—no doubt by the high satanic will which presided over the whole—to proceed to the foot of the pile, obliged to face his victim to endeavor to extract some admission from her. All that he obtained was a few words, enough to rack his soul. She said to him mildly what she had already said: "Bishop, I die through you. If you had put me into the Church prisons, this would not have happened." No doubt hopes had been entertained that, on finding herself abandoned by her King, she would at last accuse and defame him. To the last, she defended him: "Whether I have done well or ill, my King is faultless; it was not he who counselled me."

Meanwhile the flames rose. When they first seized her, the unhappy girl shrieked for holy water—this must have been the cry of fear. But, soon recovering, she called only on God, on her angels and her saints. She bore witness to them, "Yes, my voices were from God, my voices have not deceived me." The fact that all her doubts vanished at this trying moment must be taken as a proof that she accepted death as the promised deliverance; that she no longer understood her salvation in the Judaic and material sense, as until now she had done, that at length she saw clearly; and that, rising above all shadows, her gifts of illumination and of sanctity were at the final hour made perfect unto her.