The Life of Joan of Arc Part 118

And even now she did not neglect to defend the honour of the fair Dauphin, whom she had so greatly loved.

She was heard to say: "It was never my King who induced me to do anything I have done, either good or evil."[2564]

[Footnote 2564: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 56.]

Many of the bystanders wept. A few English laughed. Certain of the captains, who could make nothing of the edifying ceremonial of ecclesiastical justice, grew impatient. Seeing Messire Ma.s.sieu in the pulpit and hearing him exhort Jeanne to make a good end, they cried:

"What now, priest! Art thou going to keep us here to dinner?"[2565]

[Footnote 2565: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 6, 20; vol. iii, pp. 53, 177, 186.]

At Rouen, when a heretic was given up to the secular arm, it was customary to take him to the town hall, where the town council made known unto him his sentence.[2566] In Jeanne's case these forms were not observed. The Bailie, Messire le Bouteiller, who was present, waved his hand and said: "Take her, take her."[2567] Straightway, two of the King's sergeants dragged her to the base of the scaffold and placed her in a cart which was waiting. On her head was set a great fool's cap made of paper, on which were written the words: "_Heretique, relapse, apostate, idolatre_"; and she was handed over to the executioner.[2568]

[Footnote 2566: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 188. A. Sarrazin, _Jeanne d'Arc et la Normandie_, p. 386. Guedon and Ladvenu added to their evidence that not long afterwards a certain Georges Folenfant was also given up to the secular arm. But the Archbishop and the Inquisitor sent Ladvenu to the Bailie "in order to warn him that the said Georges was not to be treated like the Maid who was burned without the p.r.o.nouncement of any definite and final sentence." _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 9.]

[Footnote 2567: _Ibid._, p. 344.]

[Footnote 2568: Falconbridge, in _Trial_, vol. iv, p. 459. Yet Martin Ladvenu says "until the last hour," etc., which is obviously false.]

A bystander heard her saying: "Ah! Rouen, sorely do I fear that thou mayest have to suffer for my death."[2569]

[Footnote 2569: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 53.]

She evidently still regarded herself as the messenger from Heaven, the angel of the realm of France. Possibly the illusion, so cruelly reft from her, returned at last to enfold her in its beneficent veil. At any rate, she appears to have been crushed; all that remained to her was an infinite horror of death and a childlike piety.

The ecclesiastical judges had barely time to descend and flee from a spectacle which they could not have witnessed without violating the laws of clerical procedure. They were all weeping: the Lord Bishop of Therouanne, Chancellor of England, had his eyes full of tears. The Cardinal of Winchester, who was said never to enter a church save to pray for the death of an enemy,[2570] had pity on this damsel so woeful and so contrite. Brother Pierre Maurice, the canon who was a reader of the aeneid, could not keep back his tears. All the priests who had delivered her to the executioner were edified to see her make so holy an end. That is what Maitre Jean Alespee meant when he sighed: "I would that my soul were where I believe the soul of that woman to be."[2571] To himself and the hapless sufferer he applied the following lines from the _Dies irae_:

_Qui Mariam absolvisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti._[2572]

[Footnote 2570: Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 1, act i, scene 1.]

[Footnote 2571: _Trial_, vol. ii, p. 6; vol. iii, pp. 53, 191, 375.]

[Footnote 2572: _Missel Romain, Office des morts._ Cf. Le P. C. Clair, _Le Dies irae, histoire, traduction et commentaire_, Paris, in 8vo, 1881, pp. 38-142.]

But none the less he must have believed that by her heresies and her obstinacy she had brought death on herself.

The two young friars preachers and the Usher Ma.s.sieu accompanied Jeanne to the stake.

She asked for a cross. An Englishman made a tiny one out of two pieces of wood, and gave it to her. She took it devoutly and put it in her bosom, on her breast. Then she besought Brother Isambart to go to the neighbouring church to fetch a cross, to bring it to her and hold it before her, so that as long as she lived, the cross on which G.o.d was crucified should be ever in her sight.

Ma.s.sieu asked a priest of Saint-Sauveur for one, and it was brought.

Jeanne weeping kissed it long and tenderly, and her hands held it while they were free.[2573]

[Footnote 2573: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 6, 20.]

As she was being bound to the stake she invoked the aid of Saint Michael; and now at length no examiner was present to ask her whether it were really he she saw in her father's garden. She prayed also to Saint Catherine.[2574]

[Footnote 2574: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 170.]

When she saw a light put to the stake, she cried loudly, "Jesus!" This name she repeated six times.[2575] She was also heard asking for holy water.[2576]

[Footnote 2575: _Ibid._, p. 186.]

[Footnote 2576: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 8; vol. iii, pp. 169, 194.]

It was usual for the executioner, in order to cut short the sufferings of the victim, to stifle him in dense smoke before the flames had had time to ascend; but the Rouen executioner was too terrified of the prodigies worked by the Maid to do thus; and besides he would have found it difficult to reach her, because the Bailie had had the plaster scaffold made unusually high. Wherefore the executioner himself, hardened man that he was, judged her death to have been a terribly cruel one.[2577]

[Footnote 2577: _Ibid._, vol. ii, p. 7.]

Once again Jeanne uttered the name of Jesus; then she bowed her head and gave up her spirit.[2578]

[Footnote 2578: _Ibid._, vol. iii, p. 186.]

As soon as she was dead the Bailie commanded the executioner to scatter the flames in order to see that the prophetess of the Armagnacs had not escaped with the aid of the devil or in some other manner.[2579] Then, after the poor blackened body had been shown to the people, the executioner, in order to reduce it to ashes, threw on to the fire coal, oil and sulphur.

[Footnote 2579: _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 191. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, pp. 269, 270.]

In such an execution the combustion of the corpse was rarely complete.[2580] Among the ashes, when the fire was extinguished, the heart and entrails were found intact. For fear lest Jeanne's remains should be taken and used for witchcraft or other evil practices,[2581]

the Bailie had them thrown into the Seine.[2582]

[Footnote 2580: L. Tanon, _Histoire des tribunaux de l'inquisition_, p.

478.]

[Footnote 2581: _Chronique des cordeliers_, fol. 507 verso. _Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris_, p. 269.]

[Footnote 2582: _Trial_, vol. iii, pp. 159, 160, 185; vol. iv, p. 518.

Th. Basin, _Histoire de Charles VII et de Louis XI_, vol. i, p. 83.

Th. Cochard, _Existe-t-il des reliques de Jeanne d'Arc?_ Orleans, 1891, in 8vo.]

CHAPTER XV

AFTER THE DEATH OF THE MAID--THE END OF THE SHEPHERD--LA DAME DES ARMOISES

In the evening, after the burning, the executioner, as was his wont, went whining and begging to the monastery of the preaching friars. The creature complained that he had found it very difficult to make an end of Jeanne. According to a legend invented afterwards, he told the monks that he feared d.a.m.nation for having burned a saint.[2583] Had he actually spoken thus in the house of the Vice-Inquisitor he would have been straightway cast into the lowest dungeon, there to await a trial for heresy, which would have probably resulted in his being sentenced to suffer the death he had inflicted on her whom he had called a saint. And what could have led him to suppose that the woman condemned by good Father Lemaistre and my Lord of Beauvais was not a bad woman?

The truth is that in the presence of these friars he arrogated to himself merit for having executed a witch and taken pains therein, wherefore he came to ask for his pot of wine. One of the monks, who happened to be a friar preacher, Brother Pierre Bosquier, forgot himself so far as to say that it was wrong to have condemned the Maid. These words, albeit they were heard by only a few persons, were carried to the Inquisitor General. When he was summoned to answer for them, Brother Pierre Bosquier declared very humbly that his words were altogether wrong and tainted with heresy, and that indeed he had only uttered them when he was full of wine. On his knees and with clasped hands he entreated Holy Mother Church, his judges and the most redoubtable lords to pardon him. Having regard to his repentance and in consideration of his cloth and of his having spoken in a state of intoxication, my Lord of Beauvais and the Vice-Inquisitor showed indulgence to Brother Pierre Bosquier. By a sentence p.r.o.nounced on the 8th of August, 1431, they condemned him to be imprisoned in the house of the friars preachers and fed on bread and water until Easter.[2584]

[Footnote 2583: _Trial_, vol. ii, pp. 7, 352, 366.]

[Footnote 2584: _Trial_, vol. i, pp. 493, 495.]

On the 12th of June the judges and counsellors, who had sat in judgment on Jeanne, received letters of indemnity from the Great Council. What was the object of these letters? Was it in case the holders of them should be proceeded against by the French? But in that event the letters would have done them more harm than good.[2585]

[Footnote 2585: Le P. Denifle and Chatelain, _Cartularium Universitatis Parisiensis_, vol. iv, p. 527.]