The Executioner's Knife; Or, Joan of Arc

St. Marguerite and St. Catherine appear in the heroine's dream; they do not now smile and look down tenderly upon her. They are sad and threatening, and reproach her for having denied the truth out of fear and shame. Profoundly impressed by her dream, Joan wakes up, her face covered with tears, when, lo, she sees the two saints with their gold crowns on their heads and robed in white and blue, luminously, almost transparently floating in the darkness of the room, and calling her by her name.

With beating heart and clasped hands, Joan kneels down on her bed, sobs, and implores their forgiveness. Without answering her, the two saints point to heaven with a significant gesture. The apparition then gradually fades away, and darkness again reigns supreme.

Thus rudely awakened to a sense of her actual condition, the heroine forthwith feels the promptings of her own conscience, that has lain torpid since the abjuration. She traces back the solemnity in all its horrid details; she recalls the maledictions with which she was whelmed by those who just before commiserated her. The terrible, yet legitimate accusation pounds upon her ears:

"If Joan's visions are inventions and a fraud, she has deceived simple people – she has lied – she only deserves contempt."

"If her visions were genuine, if God inspired her, she covers herself with shame by abjuring out of fear of death!"

"Coward or liar" her inexorable voices repeat to her; "coward, or liar! – such is the name that you will leave behind you!"

Indescribable are the tortures that the poor creature undergoes on that night of desperate remorse. The full lucidity of her mind, of her energy, of her character, have returned to her, but only to curse her. Her keen judgment points out to her the fatal consequences of her abjuration; the soldiers and the peoples who rose at her voice against the foreigner will soon learn of the perjury committed by her whom they believed inspired! Mistrust of themselves, dejectment, even defeat may follow the victorious exaltation of the soldiers and the people. On the other hand, the memory of the martial maid, surviving her martyrdom, would have added fuel to their courage, it would have aroused an avenging hatred for the English, and the great work of the complete emancipation of Gaul would have been achieved in the name of the victim, and in execration of her butchers.

Finally, could Joan continue the war even after she regained her freedom? What confidence could she inspire in the masses, she who had been convicted of falsehood or cowardice?

The plot of the ecclesiastics was planned with diabolical craft. They foresaw and calculated the consequences of the heroine's apostasy; they realized that, taken to the pyre after she had confessed the divinity of her mission, Joan would have become a saint; if, however, she renounced her past actions, she was dishonored.

"Idle remorse!" thinks Joan. "How retract a public abjuration. Impossible! Who could believe in the sincerity of a creature who had once before renounced her faith and her honor!"

These mind and heartrending thoughts are tearing Joan Darc to pieces when morning dawns and a rap is heard at the door of her chamber. The old women rise and go to inquire who is there. It is their reverend father in God, Canon Loyseleur. He wishes to speak to Joan without delay. She hastily puts on her woman's clothes and prepares to receive the priest, towards whom she now experiences a secret aversion, seeing that she accuses him in her heart for having led her to abjure by superexciting her dread of the shame and fear of the fagots. She reflects, however, that after all, the priest might have actually believed in the wisdom of his advice, and that she alone is responsible for the cowardly apostasy. Joan receives the canon with her habitual sweetness of manners. She learns from him that she is still a prisoner in the Castle of Rouen, but that the Bishop will set her free. The prelate, adds the canon, has no interest in retaining her a prisoner, and is to allow her to escape at night in a day or two. Loyseleur pretends that, thanks to his own personal intercession with the captain of the tower, she has been transferred to that room; but the captain demands that, the prisoner being now almost well again, she be returned to her cell. His orders are to be carried out that very morning.

Joan Darc believes the priest's words and easily reconciles herself to the idea of returning to her cell, but she asks as a supreme favor that male attire be provided to her for the sake of protection against her jailers. Canon Loyseleur promises to carry her wishes to the captain of the tower. Suddenly one of the old women rushes into the room saying that the jailer and an escort of soldiers are coming to claim the prisoner. The canon assures Joan she is soon to be set free, and leaves the room at the moment that John enters, carrying manacles which he fastens on the wrists of the heroine, and then conducts her back to her cell. Upon entering, Joan notices that the male clothes which she left there have disappeared. She expects to see herself chained by the waist and feet as she was before; but, freeing her even of the manacles, John informs her that she is no longer to be chained, saying which he leaves, casting a strange look upon her. Hardly concerned at this leniency, Joan sits down upon her straw couch and remains motionless, occupied with her own thoughts.

CHAPTER VIII

THE RELAPSE

It has long been night. The little iron lamp lights the dungeon of Joan Darc, who lies upon her straw couch broken with remorse at the continuous reproaches of her voices, and racking her brain for the means to expiate her weakness. The captive bitterly regrets the disappearance of her masculine clothes. Agitated by vague presentiments, and apprehensive of dangers on which she hardly dares dwell, she has wrapped herself as closely as she can in her clothes, and fearing to yield to the sleepiness that is gaining upon her, she rises from her straw bed and sits down upon the floor with her back leaning against the wall. But pressed down by sleep, her eyelids close despite herself, by degrees her head droops forward, and finally drops upon her knees which she holds within her arms. She falls asleep.

A few minutes later the pale face of Canon Loyseleur appears at the wicket. He notices that Joan is asleep, and withdraws.

Shortly afterwards the heavy door of the dungeon turns noiselessly upon its hinges. It opens and recloses so silently that Joan Darc's slumber, is not interrupted either by the slight noise of the door or the steps of two men who creep into the cavernous precinct. The two men are Talbot and Berwick, the English captains, who are appointed by Bishop Cauchon as the additional keepers of Joan Darc. Both are men in the prime of life. They wear rich slashed jackets after the fashion of the time. The two noble officers have sought in the stimulus of wine the requisite courage to commit the unheard-of atrocity, the nameless crime that they are bent upon. Their cheeks are inflamed, their eyes glisten, a lewd smile contracts their vinous lips. At the sight of Joan asleep they stop a moment and take council. Presently the two rush upon their victim.

Awakened with a start, Joan Darc leaps up and struggles to free herself from the grasp of her assailants. Berwick seizes her by the waist, while Talbot, sliding behind, seizes her arms and approaches his mouth to the lips of Joan, who turns her head away and utters a piercing shriek. The two noblemen drag her to the straw couch. The heroine draws superhuman strength from her despair. A violent struggle ensues, horrible, nameless. The tipsy Talbot and Berwick, exasperated at the heroine's resistance, give a loose to the fury of unsatisfied lechery. They smite Joan Darc with their fists. Her face bleeds. Yet she resists, and calls for help.

At last the door opens and Canon Loyseleur appears at the entrance. He feigns indignation. He brings with him a little trunk containing Joan's male clothes, and addressing the captain of the tower who enters with him, says: "You see it with your own eyes! An infamous attempt is contemplated upon the unfortunate woman!" Perhaps not wholly dead to conscience, Berwick and Talbot allow Joan Darc to escape from their grasp, and leave the cell, followed by the captain. Distracted, her face black and blue and covered with blood, Joan Darc falls almost senseless upon her couch, near which the canon has deposited her man's attire. Before he has time to speak with the victim, he is called away by the jailer, who, shaking his fist at him, says roughly:

"Get out of here, you tonsured dotard, canon of Satan! The devil take the marplot!"

"Poor child!" cries the priest, walking out, "I brought you your clothes. Put them on despite the oath you took. You may perhaps be sentenced as a relapsed heretic. But death is preferable to outrage!"

The door of the cell closes behind the canon. Silence and darkness resume their empire in Joan's dungeon. The plot to cause Joan's condemnation, induce her abjuration and then provoke her relapse so as to justify her being publicly burned to death is being carried out to the letter.

CHAPTER IX

THE WORM TURNS

It is eight o'clock of the following morning. Joan Darc is again clad in her male attire. She is again chained. Her handsome face is bruised from the blows that she received in the nocturnal struggle. One thought only absorbs her mind – can she manage to confess aloud the truth of what she has denied? The heroine's expectations are met by the event. Instructed by his accomplice of the happenings of the day before, the Bishop has commissioned several judges to visit Joan in her cell. They are seven. Here are their names:

Nicolas of Venderesse, William Haiton, Thomas of Courcelles, Isambard of La Pierre, James Camus, Nicolas Bertin, Julien Floquet.

Considering her crime flagrant, Joan Darc feels a bitter joy at the sight of the priests. Her head erect, calm, resolute, she seems to challenge their questions. Out of modesty and dignity, however, and unwilling to run the risk of blushing before these men, she decides to be silent upon the attempt of the previous night. The judges range themselves around the couch of the enchained captive.

Thomas of Courcelles (affecting astonishment) – "What, Joan, again in man's attire? And despite your oath to renounce such idolatrous garb forever?"

Joan Darc (tersely) – "I have resumed these clothes because I was forced to."

Nicolas of Venderesse – "You have violated your oath."

Joan Darc (indignant) – "It is you who have violated yours! Have the promises made to me been kept? Have I been allowed to attend mass? Have I been restored to freedom after my abjuration? You are knaves and hypocrites!"

James Camus – "We had to conform to the ecclesiastical sentence which condemns you to perpetual imprisonment."

Joan Darc – "I prefer to die rather than remain in this prison. (She shivers with horror at the thought of the previous night's attempt upon her.) Had I been allowed to attend mass, had I been left in a decent place, free from my chains, and kept by women, I would have continued to clothe myself in the garb of my sex. If there is any fault, it lies with you."

Isambard of la Pierre – "Have you heard your voices since your condemnation?"

Joan Darc (with bitterness) – "Yes; I have heard them."

The priests look at one another and exchange meaning looks.

William Haiton – "What did your voices say to you? We want to know."

Joan Darc (with a firm voice) – "They told me I committed an act of cowardice by denying the truth."

James Camus – "And before the abjuration, what did your voices say?"

Joan Darc (intrepidly looking at her judges) – "My voices said to me it would be criminal to deny the divine inspiration that ever guided me. (Commotion among the judges.) Upon the scaffold my voices said to me: 'Answer that preacher boldly – he is a false priest!' Woe is me, I did not obey my voices!"

The judges remain silent for a moment, and exchange expressive looks.

Thomas of Courcelles – "These words are as rash as they are criminal. After having abjured, you relapse into your damnable errors!"

Joan Darc (in a ringing voice) – "The error lies in lying – by abjuring I lied! What is damnable is to damn one's soul, and I damned it by not maintaining that I obeyed the will of heaven! My voices have reproached me for having abjured."

James Camus – "Thus, after resuming male attire, a capital crime, an unpardonable crime which makes you a relapsed one, revolvistis ad vestrum vomitum– you have returned to your vomit, you dare maintain that those alleged voices – "

Joan Darc – "The voices of my saints – come from God."

Thomas of Courcelles – "On the scaffold you confessed."

Joan Darc – "On the scaffold I was a coward! I lied! I yielded to the feeling of terror!"

James Camus – "At this hour, thinking you no longer need to fear death, you come back to your former declarations."

Joan Darc – "At this hour I maintain that only fear forced me to abjure, to confess the contrary of the truth. I prefer to die, rather than remain in this prison. I have spoken. You shall have not another word from me."

James Camus – "Be it so!"

The priests file out slowly and silently. Joan Darc remains alone, on her knees upon the straw. She raises her eyes to the vault of her prison with a radiant, inspired face, and with her hands joined, she thanks her saints for the courage they have given her to expiate and annul her apostasy by resolutely marching to death.

CHAPTER X

TO THE FLAMES!

The scene changes. After the last interrogatory of Joan the priests proceed to Bishop Cauchon in order to inform him of the issue of their visit to the prisoner – a result that the prelate expects, so much so that he has convoked a sufficient number of judges to meet in the chapel of the Archbishop's palace at Rouen in order to proceed with the final sentence of the relapsed sinner. All the summoned prelates are assembled and in their seats in the chapel. Bishop Cauchon, seated in the center of the choir, presides, and orders silence with a gesture.

Bishop Cauchon – "My very dear brothers, Joan has fallen back into her damnable errors, and in contempt of her solemn abjuration, pronounced in the face of God and His Holy Writ, not only has she resumed her male attire, but she again stubbornly maintains that all that she has done and said was said and done by divine inspiration! I now call for your views, in the order of precedence, upon the fate of the said Joan who is now charged with having relapsed, reserving to myself the right of convoking you again, should I deem it necessary."

Archdeacon Nicolas of Venderesse – "The said Joan should be given over to the secular arm, to be burned alive as a relapsed sinner."

Abbot Agidie – "Joan is a relapsed heretic, no doubt about it. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that a second abjuration should be proposed to her, under pain of being delivered to the secular arm."

Canon John Pinchon – "Joan has relapsed; I shall adhere to whatever plan of punishment my very dear brothers may decide upon."

Canon William Erard – "I pronounce the said Joan a relapsed sinner and deserving of the pyre."

Chaplain Robert Gilbert – "Joan should be burned as a relapsed sinner and heretic."

Abbot of St. Audoin – "The woman is a relapsed sinner. Let her abjure a second time or be condemned."

Archdeacon John of Castillone – "Let the relapsed sinner be delivered to the secular arm."

Canon Ermangard – "I demand the exemplary death of Joan."

Deacon Boucher – "Joan should be sentenced as a relapsed one."

Prior of Longueville – "That is my opinion. She should be burned alive."

Father Giffard – "I think the relapsed sinner should be sentenced without delay."

Father Haiton – "I pronounce the said Joan a relapsed sinner. I am for her speedy punishment, provided, however, she refuses to abjure a second time."

Canon Marguerie – "Joan is a relapsed sinner. Let her be delivered up to secular justice."

Canon John of L'Epee – "I am of my brother's opinion. She should be burned to death."

Canon Garin – "I think so, too."

Canon Gastinel – "Let us give up the relapsed sinner to the pyre."

Canon Pascal – "That is my opinion. Let her be burned to death."

Father Houdenc – "The ridiculous explanations of the woman are to me an ample proof that she has always been an idolatress and a heretic. Besides that, she is a relapsed sinner. I demand that she be delivered to the secular arm without delay."

Master John of Nibat – "The said Joan is impenitent and a relapsed sinner. Let her undergo her punishment."

Father Fabre – "A heretic by habit, hardened in her errors, a rebel to the Church, the body of the said Joan should be delivered to the flames, and her ashes cast to the winds."

Abbot of Montemart – "I hold as my brother. Only I am of the opinion that she should be given a second chance to abjure."

Father Guelon – "That is my opinion."

Canon Coupequesne – "Mine also."

Canon Guillaume – "Let the said Joan be offered a second chance to retract. If she refuses, then death."

Canon Maurice – "I favor such a second summons, although I do not expect good results from it."

Doctor William of Bandibosc – "I side with my very dear brother."

Deacon Nicolas Caval – "The relapsed sinner should be treated without pity, according to her deserts. She should be burned to death."

Canon Loyseleur – "The said Joan should be delivered to the temporal flames."

Thomas of Courcelles – "The woman is a heretic and relapsed sinner. She may be summoned a second time, and told that if she persists in her errors, she has nothing to expect in this world."

Father John Ledoux – "Although such a second attempt seems to me idle, it might be tried so as to demonstrate the inexhaustible kindness of our mother the Church."

Master John Tiphaine – "I favor this second, though idle, attempt."

Deacon Colombelle – "I am of the same opinion."

Isambard of la Pierre – "Secular justice will take its course if the said Joan refuses to abjure a second time."

From these opinions it transpires that some of the judges demand immediate death, while others, and these are a small majority, favor a second abjuration, although the opinion is general that the attempt is vain. The judges have learned from their accomplices that the heroine is now determined to seek in death the expiation of the confessions which only fear drew from her. More straightforward and frank in his projects, moreover, convinced of the success of his plan, the Bishop sums up the deliberation and absolutely opposes the idea of attempting a second abjuration. Do not most of those who favor the measure consider it idle? Why, then, try it? And even if it were certain that the relapsed sinner would abjure again, the performance would have a deplorable effect. Did not the soldiers and the people, exasperated at the clemency of the Church, cry "Treason!" and seem ready to riot at the time of the first abjuration? Is it wise to incur and provoke a terrible turmoil in the town? Has not the Church given evidence of her maternal charity by admitting Joan to penitence, despite her perverse heresy? How was this act of benevolence rewarded by her? It was rewarded with renewed and redoubled boastfulness, audacity and impiety! Bishop Cauchon closes, conjuring his very dear brothers in the name of the dignity of the Church, in the name of the peace of the town, in the name of their conscience, to declare without superfluous verbiage that the said Joan is a relapsed sinner, and, as such, is given over to the secular arm, in order to be led to death the next day, after being publicly excommunicated by the Church. The judges yield to the views of the prelate. The registrar enters the sentence of death, and the session rises.

Peter Cauchon is the first to leave the chapel. Outside he meets several English captains who are waiting for the issue of the deliberations. One of them, the Earl of Warwick, says to the prelate:

"Well, what has been decided shall be done with the witch?"

"Farewell! It is done!" answers the Bishop with glee.

"The Maid – ".

"Shall be burned to-morrow – burned to death in public," interrupts Bishop Cauchon.

CHAPTER XI

THE PYRE

During the evening of May 29, 1431, the rumor spreads through Rouen that the relapsed sinner is to be burned to death on the following day. That same night carpenters raise the necessary scaffoldings while others build the pyre and plant the stake. Early the next morning companies of English archers form a cordon around the market-place, where Joan Darc is to be executed, and a double file extends into one of the streets that runs into the place. The two files of soldiers leave a wide space between them, connecting the street with the vacant area left around the scaffoldings. These are three in number, the highest of the three being at a little distance from the other two. On one of these, the one to the right, which is covered with purple cloth, rises a daised seat of crimson, ornamented with tufts of white feathers and fringed with gold. A row of seats equally decked extends on both sides of the central and daised throne, which is reached by several steps covered with rich tapestry. The scaffold to the left is of the same dimensions as the first, but it, as well as the benches thereon, is draped in black. The last of the three scaffolds consists of solid masonry about ten feet high, broad at the bottom, and ending in a narrow platform in the middle of which stands a stake furnished with iron chains and clamps. The platform is reached by a narrow set of stairs that is lost to sight in the midst of an enormous pile of fagots mixed with straw and saturated with bitumen and sulphur. The executioners have just heaped up the combustibles on the four sides of the pile of masonry. Tall poles, fastened in the ground close to the pyre bear banners on which the following legends are to be read in large white letters on a black ground:

"Joan, who had herself called the Maid, condemned to be burned alive."

"Falsifier, misleader, and deceiver of the people."

"Soothsayer, superstitious, blasphemer of God."

"Presumptuous, apostate from the faith of Jesus Christ, idolatress, cruel, dissolute."

"Invoker of devils."

"Schismatic, relapsed."117

At eight all the bells of Rouen begin tolling the funeral knell. Poor Joan, she loved the bells so well in her childhood! The May sun, that same sun that shone upon the first defeat of the English before Orleans, pure and luminous, floods the three scaffolds with its light. The crowd grows thicker around the space kept vacant by the archers; other spectators are grouped at the windows and on the balconies of the old frame houses with pointed gables that enclose the market place. Presently flags and plumes are seen waving, the steel of the casques, the gold and precious stones of the mitres and crosiers are seen shining between the two files of archers. The casqued and mitred gentry are the English captains and the prelates. Prominent among them is the Cardinal of Winchester, Clad in the Roman purple and followed by the Bishop of Boulogne and the Bishop of Beauvais, Peter Cauchon. Behind them come the Earl of Warwick and other noble captains. Slowly and majestically they ascend the stairs of the platform to the right of the pyre. The Cardinal takes his seat upon the dais, while the other dignitaries distribute themselves to his right and left. The other scaffold, that is draped in black, is occupied by the judges of the process, its institutor, its assessors and its registrars.

The appearance and arrival of these illustrious, learned or holy personages does not satisfy the gaping crowd; the condemned girl has not yet appeared. Menacing clamors begin to circulate. These are loudest among the soldiers and the Burgundian partisans, who say:

"Will the Bishop keep his promise this time? Woe to him if he trifles with us."

"Will the witch be burned at last?"

"The fagots are ready; the executioners are holding the lighted wicks."

"She ought to be burned twice over, the infamous relapsed sinner!"

"She had the brazenness to declare that she abjured under the pressure of force! She persists in declaring herself inspired!"