The Executioner's Knife Part 32

JOAN DARC (consults her memory for a moment)--"Franquet of Arras was a captain of Burgundian marauders. I took him prisoner in battle. He confessed to being a traitor, a thief and a murderer. His trial consumed fifteen days before the judges of Senlis. I asked mercy for the man, hoping to exchange him for a worthy bourgeois of Paris who was a prisoner of the English. But learning that the bourgeois died in prison, I said to the bailiff of Senlis: 'The prisoner whose exchange I wished to obtain has died. You may, if you think fit, execute justice upon Franquet of Arras, traitor, thief and murderer.'"

A JUDGE--"Did you give money to the one who helped you capture Franquet of Arras?"

JOAN DARC (shrugging her shoulders)--"I am neither minister nor treasurer of France, to order money to be paid out."

BISHOP CAUCHON--"You placed your arms _ex voto_ in the basilica of St.

Denis. What did you mean by that?"

JOAN DARC (remains silent for an instant, absorbed in painful recollections. Seriously wounded under the walls of Paris, she had upon recovery offered her armor to the Virgin Mary as a pious homage, and did so also through an impulse of indignation, that was provoked by the cowardice of Charles VII, who, after the prodigies of the Maid's victorious campaign, had returned to Touraine to join his mistresses.

Vainly had Joan said to him: "Face the English, who almost alone defend the walls of Paris; present yourself bravely at the gates of the town promising to the Parisians oblivion for the past and harmony for the future; it is almost certain that you will thus conquer your capital!"

But the royal poltroon had recoiled before the danger connected with such a step. In utter despair, Joan had decided to renounce war, she gave up her armor, and offered it up _ex voto_. Joan can not make such an admission to the priests. Guided by the generosity of her soul and instructed by her sound judgment, she would prefer to die rather than accuse Charles VII and cover him with ignominy in the eyes of his enemies. She sees France in the royalty. The King's shame would fall indelibly upon the country itself. Her answer is accordingly so framed as to save the honor of Charles VII)--"I was wounded under the walls of Poitiers; I offered my armor at the altar of the Holy Virgin in thankfulness that my wound was not mortal."

THE INQUISITOR (seeming to remember something that he had forgotten)--"Did you, during the time that you were making war in battle harness and man's attire, take the Eucharist?"

The stir among the priests and the silence that falls upon the tribunal indicates the gravity of the question put to the accused.

JOAN DARC--"I partook of communion as often as I could, and not as often as I would have wished."

BISHOP CAUCHON (excitedly)--"Registrars, did you enter that?"

A REGISTRAR--"Yes, monseigneur."

BISHOP CAUCHON--"Whence did you come the last time you went to Compiegne?"

JOAN DARC (shivers at the painful recollection)--"I came from Crespy, in Valois."

BISHOP CAUCHON--"Did your voices order the sally at which you were taken?"

JOAN DARC--"During the last week of the Easter holidays my voices often warned me that I was soon to be betrayed and delivered--but that it was so decreed--not to be surprised, and to accept everything meekly, and that G.o.d would come to my aid."

A JUDGE--"Thus your voices, the voices of your saints, told you you would be captured?"

JOAN DARC (sighing)--"Yes, they told me so a long time. I requested my saints to let me die the moment I was taken so as not to prolong my sufferings--"

THE INQUISITOR--"Did your voices tell you exactly the day on which you would be captured?"

JOAN DARC--"No, not exactly; they only announced to me that I was soon to be betrayed and delivered. I said so to the good people of Compiegne on the day of the sally."

A JUDGE--"If your voices had ordered you to deliver battle before Compiegne while warning you that you would be taken prisoner on that day, would you still have obeyed them?"

JOAN DARC--"I would have obeyed with regrets; but I would have obeyed, whatever was to happen."

A JUDGE--"Did you cross the bridge in order to make the sally from Compiegne?"

JOAN DARC (more and more cruelly affected by these remembrances)--"Does that belong to the process?"

BISHOP CAUCHON--"Answer."

JOAN DARC (rapidly in short sentences)--"I crossed the bridge. I attacked with my company the Burgundians of the Sire of Luxembourg. I threw them back twice as far as their own trenches, the third time only half way. The English then came up. They cut off my retreat. Several of my soldiers wished to force me back into Compiegne. But the bridge had been raised. We were betrayed. I was captured." (She shudders.)

BISHOP CAUCHON--"Joan, your interrogatory is closed for to-day. Pray to the Lord that He may enlighten your soul and guide you to the path of eternal salvation. May G.o.d help you, and come to your a.s.sistance." (He makes the sign of the cross.)

ALL THE OTHER PRIESTS (rising)--"Amen."

BISHOP CAUCHON--"Conduct Joan the Maid back to her prison."

The two beadles approach Joan. Each takes her by an arm; they lead her out of the chapel and deliver her to a platoon of English soldiers, who conduct her back to her dungeon.

CHAPTER IV.

THE TEMPTATION.

Livid, haggard, broken with exhaustion after her final interrogatory, Joan Darc reclines upon the straw of her cell; her male attire is still more dilapidated than when she first appeared before her judges. She is chained by the waist and feet as before. She has wound some rags around the heavy iron rings at her ankles. Their pressure made her flesh sore, and in spots broke it to the quick, creating painful wounds. Besides, one of the wounds received in battle opened anew and added to her physical suffering. But the look of profound distress upon the martial maid's face proceeds from other than these causes. One of the jailers, noticing that the prisoner barely touched the gross food furnished to her, had said that in order to restore her appet.i.te Bishop Cauchon was to send her a dish prepared in his own palace. The following day she partook of a fish that the prelate sent her. Almost immediately after she was seized with convulsive retchings and had fallen into a swoon.

The jailers thought she was upon the point of death and ran for a physician. The latter immediately discovered the symptoms of poison and succeeded in recalling her to life, but not to health. Since then the prisoner remained in a languishing state, downcast and weak.

Joan Darc is not alone in her cell. Canon Loyseleur is seated on a stool near the kind of coffin filled with straw on which she lies. Believing herself in danger of death, she has just confessed to Loyseleur, a solemnity at which she opened her soul to him and narrated her whole life. So far from remotely suspecting the infamous treason of the prelate, she drew vague hopes and religious consolation from the tokens of kindness which he seemed to bestow upon her. The canon had frequently visited the prisoner since their first interview. He obtained, said he, with much difficulty permission to leave his cell in order to offer her spiritual consolation. She reported to him what happened at her first and subsequent interrogatories. The canon congratulated her upon having a.s.serted the reality of her apparitions and revelations, and warned her against another snare, a more dangerous one that he claimed to perceive.

One of the judges having asked her which of the then two Popes should be obeyed, he advised her that, if further pressed for an answer thereon, and asked whether she would accept absolutely and blindly the opinion of her judges, she should refuse and appeal from them to G.o.d alone. A stranger to theological subtleties, Joan Darc placed confidence in Loyseleur's words. The snare thereby spread by the Bishop and his accomplice was extremely adroit.

On this day the canon had gone to Joan's cell under the pretext of fortifying her in her good resolutions, and after having taken Joan's general confession, and bestowed paternal and consoling words upon her, he went to the wicket to call John to let him out. The jailer quickly appeared, grumbled a few words in affected anger, opened the door, hurled the canon out with a great display of force and locked the door after him. Joan was left alone.

In making her general confession to the canon, in narrating to him her whole, life, Joan had yielded not merely to a religious habit, but also to the desire of once more evoking the memories of her whole past existence, and of scrupulously interrogating herself upon all her actions. The threatening present induced the desire. She wished to ascertain with inexorable severity towards herself whether any of her actions were blameworthy. The mere thought of the threatened punishment, to be burned alive, prostrated her mind. The reasons for her terror were various. First of all she shrank before the shame of being publicly dragged to death like a criminal; the atrocious torment of feeling the flames devouring her flesh threw her into further agonies; finally the chaste girl was distracted by the fear of being taken half naked to the pyre. She had questioned the canon several times upon that head, and had learned from him that "heretics, male and female, are taken to death without any other clothing than a shirt, and on their heads a large pasteboard mitre inscribed with the heretic's special crimes." At the thought of appearing in public in an almost nude condition the maid's dignity and modesty revolted. The despair that such thoughts threw her into made her ready to submit to any declaration that her judges might demand of her, if it only could save her from such ignominy. In vain did her voices whisper to her: "Submit bravely to your martyrdom, not the shadow of a wrongful act stains the l.u.s.ter of your life. Yield not to vain shame, the shamefulness of it must fall upon your murderers. Face without a blush the looks of men--glory covers you with a celestial aureola--be strong of heart!"

In these moments of despair, the heroine became again the timid young girl whose intense modesty had caused her even to renounce the sacred joys of wifehood, and who had taken the vow of virginity to her saints.

Thus, despite the encouragement of her voices, her strength failed her, especially at the thought of being led to the pyre in a mere shirt.

After her recent spell of sickness that, snapping the springs of her energetic and tender nature, slowly undermined her will power, Joan fell with increasing frequency under the dominion of weakness. At intervals her wonted courage and resoluteness resumed the ascendancy. Her voices said to her: "Do not yield to those false priests, who pretend to judge you and are but your butchers. Uphold truth bravely! Pride yourself in having saved France with the aid of heaven. Defy death! They may burn your body, but your fame will live imperishable as your immortal soul, that will radiantly rejoin its Creator! n.o.ble victim of priests'

hypocrisy and of the wickedness of man, quit this sad world and enter paradise!"

Such were, after her last interrogatory and the suffering produced by her illness, the spells of resoluteness and faint-heartedness that wrestled with each other and alternately exalted and again cast the heroine down. On this day, however, Joan Darc feels herself so exhausted that she feels certain she will speedily expire in her cell and escape the ordeal of the pyre. Suddenly the noise of approaching steps is heard outside and she recognizes the voice of the Bishop saying to the jailers:

"Open to us the door of Joan's prison; open it to the justice of G.o.d!"

The door is opened, and the prelate appears, accompanied by seven of the ecclesiastical judges--William Boucher, Jacob of Tours, Maurice of Quesnay, Nicolas Midi, William Adelin, Gerard Feuillet, and Haiton--and the inquisitor John Lemaitre.

The members of the holy tribunal are accompanied by two registrars. One of these carries a large lighted wax taper, the other a book of parchments and other writing material. The Bishop is clad in his sacerdotal robes, his accomplices wear their priestly or their monastic gowns. They silently range themselves in a semi-circle near the straw couch on which the chained prisoner is lying. The Bishop steps towards her; one of the registrars sits down at the table he has carried in, on which he lays his parchments; the other remains standing near his companion lighting the desk with his candle, whose reddish glamor falls upon the faces of the ecclesiastics, motionless as specters, and, rather than illuminating, imparts a somber aspect to the scene. Surprised at the unexpected visit, the object of which she is ignorant of, Joan Darc rises painfully and casts a frightened and wondering look around her.

BISHOP CAUCHON (in accents of hypocritic compa.s.sion)--"These reverend priests, doctors of theology, and myself, have come to visit you in your prison, out of which you are at present unable to move. We come to bring you words of consolation. You have been questioned by the most learned clerks of canonical law. Your answers, I must tell you paternally, have so far borne the stamp of most d.a.m.nable error, and if you persist in these errors, errors so prejudicial to the salvation of your soul and the safety of your body, we shall see ourselves compelled to give you over to the secular arm."

JOAN DARC (in a feeble voice)--"I feel so ill and so weak, that it seems to me I am about to die. If it must be so by the will of G.o.d I request communion before death, and sacred soil for my body after death."

A JUDGE--"Submit yourself to the Church. The more you stand in fear of death, all the more should you mend your ways."

JOAN DARC--"If my body dies in prison, I request of you a sacred sepulchre for it. If you refuse that to me, I shall appeal to G.o.d. May His will be done."

BISHOP CAUCHON--"These are grave words. You appeal to G.o.d. But between you and G.o.d stands His Church."