Maître Nicolas Loiseleur exhorted her to correct the error she had caused to grow up among the people.
"To this end you must openly declare that you have been deceived and have deceived the folk and that you humbly ask pardon."
Then, fearing lest she might forget when the time came for her to be publicly judged, she asked Brother Martin to put her in mind of this matter and of others touching her salvation.[951]
Maître Loiseleur went away giving signs of violent grief. Walking through the streets like a madman, he was howled at by the Godons.[952]
It was about nine o'clock in the morning when Brother Martin and Messire Massieu took Jeanne out of the prison, wherein she had been in bonds one hundred and seventy-eight days. She was placed in a cart, and, escorted by eighty men-at-arms, was driven along the narrow streets to the Old Market Square, close to the River.[953] This square was bordered on the east by a wooden market-house, the butcher's market, on the west by the cemetery of Saint-Sauveur, on the edge of which, towards the square, stood the church of Saint-Sauveur.[954] In this place three scaffolds had been raised, one against the northern gable of the market-house; and in its erection several tiles of the roof had been broken.[955] On this scaffold Jeanne was to be stationed, there to listen to the sermon. Another and a larger scaffold had been erected adjoining the cemetery. There the judges and the prelates were to sit.[956] The pronouncing of sentence in a religious trial was an act of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. For the place of its pronouncement the Inquisitor and the Ordinary preferred consecrated territory, holy ground. True it is that a bull of Pope Lucius forbade such sentences to be given in churches and cemeteries; but the judges eluded this rule by recommending the secular arm to modify its sentence. The third scaffold, opposite the second, was of plaster, and stood in the middle of the square, on the spot whereon executions usually took place. On it was piled the wood for the burning. On the stake which surmounted it was a scroll bearing the words:
"Jehanne, who hath caused herself to be called the Maid, a liar, pernicious, deceiver of the people, soothsayer, superstitious, a blasphemer against God, presumptuous, miscreant, boaster, idolatress, cruel, dissolute, an invoker of devils, apostate, schismatic, and heretic."[957]
The square was guarded by one hundred and sixty men-at-arms. A crowd of curious folk pressed behind the guards, the windows were filled and the roofs covered with onlookers. Jeanne was brought on to the scaffold which had its back to the market-house gable. She wore a long gown and hood.[958] Maître Nicolas Midi, doctor in theology, came up on to the same platform and began to preach to her.[959] As the text of his sermon he took the words of the Apostle in the first Epistle to the Corinthians:[960] "And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it." Jeanne patiently listened to the sermon.[961]
Then my Lord of Beauvais, in his own name and that of the Vice-Inquisitor, pronounced the sentence.
He declared Jeanne to be a relapsed heretic.
"We declare that thou, Jeanne, art a corrupt member, and in order that thou mayest not infect the other members, we are resolved to sever thee from the unity of the Church, to tear thee from its body, and to deliver thee to the secular power. And we reject thee, we tear thee out, we abandon thee, beseeching this same secular power, that touching death and the mutilation of the limbs, it may be pleased to moderate its sentence...."[962]